The geographical axis of the worldwide diamond industry - London-Belgium-India- is shifting with the move of De Beers to Botswana. The change offers Israel a rare opportunity to empower its position as a leading diamond center.

       The onset of the new millenium was marked by the begining of significant changes in the world diamond industry; new producers entered the channel of rough supply; the European Commission called for the end of the exclusive supply agreement between De Beers and Alosa and the producing countries in Soethern Africa began demanding that the rough produced from their land be left in the country to benefit the local residents.

       These changes and others were coupled with a decline in De Beersshare of rough production to only 35%, a change in its position from the "custodian" that regulates the flow of rough to the market and controls prices exclusively, to leader and tone-setter. The influence of these processes, which altered the structure of the world diamond industry fundamentally, can be seen in the way each and every one of us runs our businesses today. For example - the apperance of competitors in the market of rough supply and the inevitable impact of globalization replaced the monolothic control with free competition and we had to accustom ourselves to a new form of marketing-tenders and auctions.

       With De Beers' move of its rough distribution system from London to Botsawana, which is now being completed. London will no longer be relevant to the diamond business. One can assume that Belgium, which has not seen very much joy lately because of its own problems, will also continue to lose its position as a centre of power in the diamond industry. The Indians - who were and return a strong centre-will no longer need Europe and they will make their way directly to Africa.

       The tremendous array of fluctuations and changes in the world diamond industry-in addition to stromy global development, such as the 2008-9 crisis and the introduction of strict regulartory systems, on boths the worldwide and local levels-might even be compared to a shift to tectonic plates. The earth moved under our feet. We could panic and try to hold on to what is old familar, but we could also - and we managed to do this - move together, understand where things were going, embrace them and flow with them.

       The enthusiasm of the rough companies, on the one hand, and of the Israeli diamantaries, on the otherhand, led to our second focus on behalf of all our members - strwngthening the Israeli diamond industry as magnet for diamond buyers from aboard. In 1991 throughout the world because the buyers had stopped coming to Israel - a move that made sense at the time. But in 2011 we began thinking about how to create a magnet that would draw the buyers to Israel.

       We need to remind the world as a whole, and ourselves, as well, that we have an tremendous centre with about 1400 diamond companies, including world leaders, a walth of goods of all sorts, thousands of creative, talented people and a modern , excellent logistics system. All of this is in Isreal. The polished flows to Israel from all over the world - from our factories and others. We are the centre. This is certainly a source of pride.

       Thinking outside of the box, we decided to boost the strength of the Israel Diamond Exchange using a very important tool for the 21st century - cooperation. Cooperation between the preseident of the DDC, Reuven Kaufman and myslef led to the creation of the Israel Diamond Week in New York in December 2012 andthe first project of its type in the world diamond industry - the US & international Diamond Week held in Israel in August.

       The number of ISraeli companies that asked to participate in this project was overflowing, and therefore we prepared additional space, in order to comfortably accomodate all those who wanted to attend. The participation of over 350 Isreali diamond companies created a critical mass of commercial power, exhibiting a volume of diamonds that is unpreceedented in any other single venue worldwide.

       At the Presidents' Meeting held in Turkey in June 2013, I spoke about the marvelous cooperation between Reuven Kaufman and myself. There was great enthusiasm, and talks of future collaboration with the diamond exchange of Belgium and India have already begun. It seems that the worldview we adopted and put into action is catching on. In a worldview we adoped and put into action is catching on. In a world of such fierce competition, such high costs and such significant erosion of profitablility, we found a way to bring hundreds of rough and polished companies to Israel at almost no cost and to remind everyone that we are a very interesting diamond centre. Our project is creating international reverberations. Israel is a leading diamond centre at the right point in time and the right point on the map.