The new hub is located in the city of Surat, where over 90% of the world’s diamonds are cut and polished
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated Surat Diamond Bourse, a new precious stones cutting and polishing hub in Surat in his home state of Gujarat. The new facility is expected to take over from the Bharat Diamond Bourse in Mumbai as the country’s main diamond trading center.
The Surat bourse is not just India’s biggest hub for the international diamond and jewelry trade but is believed to be the world’s largest – for both rough and polished diamonds, as well as finished products. The bourse has nine 15-story towers and more than 4,500 offices, including a customs clearance house and bank, safe vaults, as well as retail, fitness, and conference facilities.
Earlier this year, CNN published images of the Surat bourse that it claimed to have obtained exclusively and noted the new complex is bigger than the Pentagon. The bourse is built across 14 hectares (35 acres) of land and comprises over 660,000 square meters (7.1 million square feet) of floor space.
It is located inside the Diamond Research and Mercantile City, which is an upcoming 810-hectare business district in Surat that is modelled after the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, or Gift City, another project of the Modi government aimed at creating a global financial and IT services hub on par with the world’s oldest financial centers such as Dubai, Singapore and Shanghai.
Where Brilliance meets Business 💎🇮🇳
📍 Surat Diamond Bourse pic.twitter.com/ms3NpFr8DM
— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) December 17, 2023