Carat$2,666.92 a polished carat, $82.66 a rough one: Antwerp's two books split
Antwerp exported 1.15% fewer polished carats for 15.99% more dollars in the seven months to July, and 10.90% more rough carats for 17.73% fewer dollars. Per carat, polished rose 17.34% and rough fell 25.82%.
§1Two books, seven months, opposite directions.
The Antwerp World Diamond Centre's July statistics workbook, last saved on 26 August and downloaded and read directly by this desk rather than through the summary page that sits above it, records two trades moving in opposite directions over the same seven months. Polished exports for January to July 2026 came to 1,581,439.42 carats worth $4,217,580,162, against 1,599,866.76 carats worth $3,636,115,968 in the same months of 2025. That is 18,427.34 fewer carats, a fall of 1.15%, carrying $581,464,194 more, a rise of 15.99%. Rough exports went the other way: 19,917,971.55 carats worth $1,646,417,080 against 17,960,158.83 carats worth $2,001,229,753, which is 1,957,812.72 more carats, up 10.90%, for $354,812,673 fewer dollars, down 17.73%.
§2Divide each side and the volume story disappears.
Divide each side and the story stops being about volume. The average polished carat leaving Antwerp was worth $2,666.92 in the seven months to July, against $2,272.76 a year earlier, a rise of 17.34%. The average rough carat leaving was worth $82.66 against $111.43, a fall of 25.82%. In the first seven months of 2025 a polished carat out of Antwerp was worth 20.40 times a rough one. It is now worth 32.26 times as much. The spread between the two ends of this trade has widened by nearly twelve turns in a year.
§3What comes in, against what goes out.
The import side tells a jeweller where the value is added and where it is not. Antwerp took in 2,348,081.16 polished carats at $1,897.93 each and sent out 1,581,439.42 at $2,666.92 each. The carat that leaves is worth 40.52% more than the carat that arrives. That figure is a difference in mix rather than a trading margin, and it should be read as one: Antwerp is not marking up the same stones, it is importing a broader book and exporting a narrower, better one. On rough the same comparison inverts. Rough came in at $84.74 a carat and left at $82.66, so the average rough carat leaving Antwerp is worth 2.46% less than the average rough carat arriving.
§4The caveat the July column supplies.
One caveat belongs in the same breath as the headline, and the workbook supplies it. The July month on its own does not repeat the seven-month pattern at anything like the same strength. Polished exports in July 2026 were 228,701.17 carats for $499,154,341, or $2,182.56 a carat, against $2,112.43 in July 2025. That is a rise of 3.32%, not 17.34%. Rough exports in July ran $92.70 a carat against $116.05, a fall of 20.12%. The rough collapse is still there in the single month. The polished per-carat surge has largely gone out of it. Whatever pulled the polished average up did most of its work earlier in the year.
This is what a squeeze looks like from the middle of the pipeline rather than from either end of it. Antwerp is handling more rough for less money and less polished for more money, which is the arithmetic of a cutting centre being paid better for finished goods while the raw material it buys and passes on gets cheaper and more plentiful.
That is a good year to be a trader of polished and a poor one to be a trader of rough, and the July column is a warning that the good half of it is already fading.
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