The latest Rapaport Diamond Podcast episode spotlighted the intricacies of India’s polished pricing system, featuring Shreyans Dholakia, brand custodian at Shree Ramkrishna Exports (SRK).
The executive explained how the company, one of the world’s largest diamond cutters, holds online auctions to assess market prices. It then uses that intelligence to set fixed pricing for the majority of its production.
This “one-price” policy — in which customers either take or leave the company’s price — has become less common overall in the Indian diamond market, because negotiating enables vendors to make sales in difficult markets. SRK has held on to the system despite the challenges during the recent downturn, Dholakia said in conversation with Rapaport’s Joshua Freedman.
Meanwhile, demand from Chinese buyers remains weak even after a positive March Hong Kong show, said the executive, who was speaking on April 1, before the US announced tariffs on imports. SRK is maintaining full production levels, seeing an opportunity to increase its market share as the rest of the market reduces its output, he noted.
Dholakia addressed the recent strikes in Surat’s diamond industry and described a special diamond SRK had gifted to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He also explained the circumstances around SRK’s appearance on and removal from a list of companies that had bought Russian goods following the start of the Ukraine war.
Listen to the episode here:
