India elected Vice Chair of KPCS 2018

India has been elected as the Vice Chair for 2018 and Chair for 2019 of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), an official statement said on Saturday.

The Kimberley Process (KP) is an international initiative to stem the trade in conflict diamonds. In 2002, the KPCS was launched by a coalition of governments, civil society and the diamond industry in response to the role of diamonds in funding some of the most devastating civil wars in Africa.

Accepting the decision of the KP, Manoj Dwivedi, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce and head of the Indian delegation to the KP Plenary Meeting said, "With all gratitude we accept the responsibility to be the Vice Chair in 2018 and the Chair in 2019. I thank European Union for their prudence and maturity in collaborating with us to reach this solution which creates goodwill and no ill will in our forum."

The announcement was made at the recently held KP Plenary meeting 2016 at Dubai. Earlier, India had held the position of KP Chair in 2008.

He further stated that the progression of Chairpersonship has been from Australia, a producing country to EU, a trading country, and India a manufacturing country of diamonds.

"Our approach will be collaborative, democratic and transparent to take this illustrious process to a new era of digital relevance and capacity building so that there will be equitable distribution of capabilities and standards, especially amongst the African colleagues with alluvial mining in managing the KPCS and issuance of the KP certificates", Dwivedi said.

--IANS

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