Six hundred miles east of the Angolan capital Luanda is a small city named Saurimo, whose primary industry has traditionally been agriculture. So, visitors might be surprised to come across a sprawling new development of large buildings, a power station and empty plots of land awaiting new construction on its outskirts.
The $77m Saurimo Diamond Development Hub, built on the road toward the large Catoca diamond mine, was inaugurated by President João Lourenço last August. It represents the southern African country’s efforts to shake off its troubled past – one that has made it a no-go zone for many miners in the past – and finally realise the promise of its immense, largely untapped diamond deposits.
It’s an invitation to which global investors and miners have responded. Most recently, industry leader De Beers Group announced that it has signed two mineral investment contracts to begin diamond exploration and mining in Angola, after exiting the Click for details
