Moscow: The Finance Ministry of Russian Federation has prepared a draft under which jewellery featuring artificial materials having the characteristics of natural stones should be displayed in separate windows, according to Interfax.

The decree states that the windows with such jewellery should be marked with a note saying “Jewelry and other articles featuring materials of artificial origin”.

Lab-grown diamonds have the same characteristics as natural diamonds, therefore, such stones can only be detected with the help of special machines.

The new initiative of the Ministry of Finance will make the distinction between natural and synthetic stones more visual and much clearer for buyers.

Many companies have already expressed their interest in the separation of “synthetics” and natural stones.

In order to differentiate the industry of natural diamonds and the lab-grown stones, last year De Beers launched the brand of synthetic diamonds, Lightbox.

Independent diamond industry analyst Paul Zimnisky said at the time of the launch of Lightbox Jewellery that this was a strategic move out of necessity by De Beers on behalf of the whole natural diamond industry.
“I don’t see this as a move by De Beers to simply take a piece of the lab-created diamond market pie, but rather take control of the lab-created industry and steer it in a way that protects their natural diamond business,” he said.

Recently, the Russian company ALROSA signed a MoU with Angolan Endiama under which the countries will promote among other things integrated delineation of international markets for rough and polished diamonds (both natural and synthetic) to protect fair competition and interests of diamond mining countries.