Dubai Challenge to Antwerp Diamond Trade Helped by Banks - Bloomberg

Dubai Challenge to Antwerp Diamond Trade Helped by Banks - Bloomberg:



"Dubai’s banks are extending loans to the local diamond industry, boosting the emirate’s ambitions of becoming a top trading hub as funding to rival Antwerp dries up.



Emirates NBD PJSC. (EMIRATES), Mashreqbank PSC. (MASQ), and National Bank of Fujairah PSC., are financing diamond cutters, polishers and traders operating on the Dubai Diamond Exchange for the first time, Peter Meeus, chairman of the exchange, said in an Oct. 12 interview. The extension of credit may be a “decisive factor” in Dubai’s future growth as a diamond-trade center, he said.



United Arab Emirates’s banks are backing the local diamond industry just as Antwerp faces a lending drought. KBC Groep NV said last month that it’s winding down its Antwerp Diamond Bank unit, a source of finance for 80 years to the network of companies that trade, cut and polish diamonds in the Belgian port city, after a sale to China’s Yinren Group fell through."



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