Antwerp: The World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) has held its Executive Committee meeting in Idar-Oberstein, Germany, where members discussed and debated the next steps the organization should take to increase its global footprint. On the agenda were expanding the membership of the WFDB as a leader of the worldwide diamond trade by accepting associate and other members, and introducing a global communications strategy to make it the authoritative trade organization of the diamond industry.

Executive Director, Louise Prior, gave a detailed analysis of the current work of the WFDB and plans for taking the federation forward. On the issue of new members, the ExCo meeting accepted a proposal to enable the creation of sub-committees to create forums for new associate and nation affiliated members.

“We take our leadership position very seriously, and in a rapidly changing world we need to carefully examine how we boost it further by adding other representatives of the diamond pipeline,” said WFDB President Ernie Blom. “They are interested in being affiliated to the WFDB and our members will benefit from their input.

“We held an exhaustive review of our operations and what our future direction should look like. This is the first step and we realize that we need to move quickly in implementing a new strategy. The business environment moves rapidly and we want to be the clear voice of the industry for the media, government bodies and other organizations.

The WFDB ExCo reiterated its support for the World Diamond Mark and its generic diamond promotion work.

The WFDB will hold its next Executive Committee meeting on February 28 in Seoul, South Korea, with the annual Asian Summit to take place the following day. Meanwhile, the 2016 World Diamond Congress will take place in Dubai from May 16 to 19.