India cuts Russian rough diamonds imports 36% to $384 mln in 11M

India cut rough diamond imports from Russia 36% to $384 million in January-November 2025 from $604.8 million a year previously, the Indian Commerce and Industry Ministry said. The drop has narrowed somewhat – exports had fallen 45% year-on-year in January-May, for instance.

Russia supplied $15 million of diamonds in November, as in October. India’s total rough diamond imports fell just 8% in 11M 2025 to $15.4 billion from $16.74 billion.

The UAE, Hong Kong and Belgium and the United States are still the biggest rough diamond suppliers to India in value terms. Hong Kong was behind Russia in terms of diamond supplies until 2022, when the U.S. imposed sanctions against Russian diamond miner ALROSA .

Diamond imports from the UAE rose 5% year-on-year in11M 2025 to $7.76 billion, imports from Hong Kong were flat at $2.26 billion, supplies from Belgium fell 12% to $1.73 billion and from the U.S. they fell 33% to $1.6 billion.

Imports of Russian diamonds began to decline in annual terms in April 2024, possibly due to G7 sanctions against Russian diamonds going into effect. India is the world’s largest producer of polished diamonds, accounting for nine-tenths of all polished diamonds, predominantly small ones, which used to be made mostly from Russian rough diamonds. After the imposition of U.S. and G7 sanctions, direct diamond exports from Russia have become more difficult, and some Russian rough diamonds may be entering the UAE from where they are imported for cutting to India