It also comes as Chow Tai Fook, which has more than 4,500 stores in East Asia and the United States, plans to expand its global footprint.
Partnership, the NDC’s first collaboration with a retailer, seeks to attract young Chinese customers to naturally produced diamonds.
“One of our key priorities this year is to work closely with natural diamond retailers to protect and convey the authentic and unique beauty of natural diamonds together,” David Kellie, CEO of the Natural Diamond Council, said in the statement.
“I am confident that this partnership will solidify the values of and forge consumers’ desire for natural diamonds,” Chan Sai-Cheong, managing director (Mainland China) of Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group added.
Earlier this month, the world’s biggest jeweller Pandora dealt a blow to diamond miners by announcing it would no longer sell mined gems, but exclusively man-made ones.
Since 2011, when prices peaked thanks to China’s younger shoppers, diamonds have faltered. Lab-grown stones, initially priced confusingly close to the real thing, posed a challenge.
The NDC, until 2020 known as the Diamond Producers Association, focuses on marketing mined rocks and its funded by its members: ALROSA, De Beers, Dominion Diamonds, Lucara Diamond, Petra Diamonds, Rio Tinto and RZM Murowa.
