The U.S. exported $51.85 million worth of rough in August, compared to imports of $52.52 million, leaving it with a net of only $674,000 of rough goods in August. But the interesting story has to do with the volume of the goods.

Imports of 133,814 carats were dwarfed by exports of 654,024 carats. The U.S. is clearly looking for higher value goods as the average value of imports stood at $392.50 per carat compared to an average of just $79.28 p/c for exports.

With no commercial diamond mining in the country, it is not clear where all these low quality goods are coming for. It has been clear for many months that the U.S. is exporting more low value goods then it is importing. Have dealers held on to these diamonds, keeping them in their vaults for long and now slowly selling them?

While most of the exports were to Israel ($15.53 million), they were high value goods averaging $751.49 p/c. But $10.25 million in exports to the UAE averaged less then $19 p/c. These goods, it must be noted, are not industrial grade