• Diamond exports fell 83% from their January–July 2023 level to US$45.7 million
• Zimbabwe’s rough-diamond export value per carat nearly halved between 2023 and 2025
• ZCDC plans higher production in 2026 while global prices and Zimbabwe’s own sales economics remain weak

Harare- Zimbabwe’s diamond export receipts have fallen to US$45.7 million between January and July 2026, down 46.5% from US$85.6 million in the comparable 2025 period and 83% below the US$267.5 million earned during the first seven months of 2023 according to the latest data from Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat). The decline has occurred during one of Zimbabwe’s strongest merchandise-export expansions, isolating diamonds as one of the clearest areas of deterioration inside an increasingly mineral-driven export economy.

Total merchandise exports increased from US$3.84 billion in January–July 2023 to US$7.36 billion in the corresponding 2026 period. Diamonds moved in the opposite direction. Their contribution to exports fell from roughly 7% of merchandise earnings in 2023 to around 0.6% in 2026, meaning a mineral product that carried meaningful weight in Zimbabwe’s foreign-currency account three years ago has become comparatively marginal.

The deterioration cannot be explained by production volumes alone. Kimberley Process data show Zimbabwe exported 5.59 million carats worth US$297.4 million in 2023, at an average US$53.18 per carat. Export volume actually climbed to 7.77 million carats in 2024, yet export value fell to US$234.4 million because average value dropped to US$30.16 per carat. In 2025, exports declined to 4.61 million carats valued at US$125.2 million, with the average price slipping further to US$27.16 per carat.

Between 2023 and 2025, Zimbabwe’s rough-diamond export volume fell about 18%, while export earnings dropped almost 58%. The average export value per carat declined about 49%. That decomposition puts pricing and product mix at the centre of the earnings collapse alongside weaker volumes.

The first quarter of 2026 extended the pattern. The Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe reported sales of 784,764 carats worth US$21.55 million, with volumes down 11% year on year and value down 29%. That equates to roughly US$27.50 per carat during the quarter, maintaining realised values close to the depressed 2025 level.

Global conditions have been difficult enough to explain part of the decline. De Beers recorded a 16% fall in its rough-diamond price index during the first half of 2026, while its average realised price declined 32% to US$105 per carat. Sales volumes increased 13% to 12.4 million carats, yet rough-diamond revenue fell from US$1.7 billion to US$1.3 billion. Even the industry's largest producers are therefore selling more stones into weaker pricing.

Zimbabwe’s position is more acute. ZCDC chief executive Douglas Zimbango told lawmakers that international rough-diamond prices had fallen about 26% to 35%, while Zimbabwean goods had suffered a much steeper decline from a peak around US$79 per carat toward US$22, with an expected 2026 range of US$22 to US$34. He attributed the weakness to Zimbabwe's product profile, geopolitical conditions, synthetic-diamond competition, market collusion and what he described as an unsatisfactory sales framework.

The regional comparison puts the commercial gap into perspective. Kimberley Process data value Zimbabwe’s 2025 diamond production at US$24.33 per carat, compared with about US$107.43 in South Africa, US$127.66 in Botswana and US$343.88 in Namibia. These are different geological deposits with very different stone qualities, which means the price gap cannot be treated purely as a marketing failure. It does establish how much more volume Zimbabwe must mine to generate the same dollar value as higher-value producers.

That changes how ZCDC’s production strategy should be assessed. The state-owned miner produced approximately 3.8 million carats in 2025 and is targeting five million carats in 2026, an increase of roughly 32%. At the disclosed US$22 to US$34 per carat range, five million carats would carry a gross value of only about US$110 million to US$170 million before differences between production, sales timing, inventory and actual saleable mix are considered.

The logic shows why volume growth alone has limited capacity to restore the sector to earlier earnings levels. Zimbabwe’s Kimberley Process production valuation reached US$670 million in 2021 despite output of only 4.23 million carats, because the reported production value averaged US$158.57 per carat. By 2025, production of a comparable 4.21 million carats was valued at just US$102.4 million. Virtually the same physical output therefore carried around 85% less reported value.

There is a sales architecture issue alongside geology and global pricing. ZCDC currently sells through MMCZ using competitive local and international tenders and has expanded its international channels, including the addition of Dubai-based Trans Atlantic Gem Sales alongside Taurum Group. The company also cleans, sorts and evaluates stones before sale, while 10% of monthly production is reserved for local manufacturers under existing beneficiation rules.

Government has already invested in improving realised value. ZCDC commissioned a Deep Boiling Facility in November 2024 to improve diamond clarity and lustre, with Treasury expecting the investment to enhance commercial value. Production nevertheless weakened during 2025 and average export value remained depressed, leaving the effectiveness of beneficiation and sales reforms to be tested against actual realised prices over a longer period.

The accountability benchmark for 2026 therefore needs to move beyond the five-million-carat production target. ZCDC needs to demonstrate whether higher output is accompanied by improving realised value per carat, stronger tender competition, better inventory conversion and higher dollar receipts. A production increase accompanied by another contraction in export value would leave the underlying commercial problem unresolved.

Zimbabwe’s wider mining export boom makes that test more consequential. Gold, nickel, lithium-linked products, steel and other mineral categories are generating rapidly rising foreign-currency receipts while diamonds have surrendered most of the export value they carried three years ago.

The sector's recovery therefore rests on two measurable variables through the remainder of 2026: whether sales volumes recover and whether the realised value of Zimbabwean stones moves sustainably above the US$22 to US$34 range currently expected by ZCDC. Without improvement in the second measure, additional carats provide a weak route back toward the hundreds of millions of dollars diamonds generated earlier in the decade.

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