India’s Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) held a meeting to determine standardized terminology for natural and lab-grown diamonds that would clearly differentiate between the two.
There is an “urgent” need to address “critical concerns regarding the lack of standardized terminology and inadequate disclosure practices in the diamond sector. These gaps have resulted in consumer confusion and misleading practices,” the government body said Tuesday.
Another government body, the Bureau of Indian Standards, mandates that the term “diamond” can be used alone only to refer to natural stones. All lab-grown must be “explicitly referred to as ‘synthetic diamonds,’ irrespective of the production method or material used,” CCPA noted. It also prohibits synthetic diamonds from being graded alongside natural diamonds.
A 2019 consumer protection act precludes unfair trade practices and aims to ensure transparent labeling in the diamond industry. This was reinforced by the Central Board in Direct Taxes and Custom last month, which directed that companies must explicitly declare whether a diamond is natural or lab-grown, and if it is lab-grown, whether it is produced using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) or High Pressure-High Temperature (HPHT).
At the meeting, the government entities established guidelines for the following: explicit labeling and certification of all diamonds, specifying their origin and production method; the prohibition of misleading terms like “natural” or “genuine” for lab-grown; and accreditation systems to regulate and standardize diamond-testing laboratories.
The CCPA will release a full set of guidelines in the near future, it added.
Image: A lab-grown diamond and certificate. (Shutterstock)
Join Rapaport’s exclusive WhatsApp channel for real-time news, analysis, and insights.
