KDT Diamonds is building a factory in India that can produce up to 100,000 carats of lab grown diamonds per year. KDT Diamond announced on the 25th that it received approval from the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry to establish a lab-grown diamond manufacturing and polishing plant.
KDT Diamond plans to complete construction of the factory in March of next year (2024) and begin operation in the same month, producing 36,000 carats in the first year of establishment. The goal is to produce 100,000 carats per year in the future.
The factory site was selected as the Surat Special Economic Zone in the Surat region, where more than 95% of the world’s diamonds are polished. The building will have a total floor area of 2,000 m2 (approximately 605 pyeong), and construction will begin in November. To this end, we plan to establish a local corporation in India and hire about 150 employees.
KDT Diamond is currently the only lab-grown diamond production company in Korea. The company succeeded in producing lab-grown diamonds for the first time in 2021, and also acquired a related patent (microwave plasma CVD device for diamond synthesis) earlier this year.
In addition to these technological capabilities, KDT Diamond plans to increase cost competitiveness by building a production base in India, where it can secure a sufficient number of polishers with long experience. India is a diamond powerhouse, responsible for 95% of the world’s diamond processing, and has recently been implementing policies to gain an upper hand in the lab-grown diamond market.
Earlier this year, the company announced plans to abolish tariffs and provide funding for diamond seeds, a key raw material required for lab-grown diamond production. Kang Seong-hyuk, head of KDT Diamond, said, “Recently, as interest in lab-grown diamonds has grown in Korea, the number of consumers looking for products has increased significantly, but it has been difficult to meet this demand with only domestic production personnel.”
He added, “Once the Indian factory starts operating after March next year, sufficient production will be possible. “We expect that we will be able to sufficiently meet the increased demand because we can secure it,” he said.
