The fourth Antwerp Diamond Conference, to be held from Oct. 15-16, will examine changes in the diamond industry now that the De Beers Group has moved from being a dominant single-channel player controlling the majority of rough supply in the market to managing around 45 percent of rough today.

"In less than a decade, the diamond industry has evolved from a single-channel supply industry into a multi-channel supply industry, and inevitably this is changing the rules of the game," Freddy J. Hanard, chief executive officer of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, the organizer of the Antwerp Diamond Conference, said in a statement. "The new situation requires all players to be on their toes because the diamond producers are considerably more market-driven. There understandably are a wide variety of rough-diamond sources, but supply is less predictable and price volatility more likely. It's a very different business environment to the one we were used to, and one that will be analyzed in depth by speakers at the conference."

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