CaratHRD Antwerp opens Mumbai lab grading 2,000 diamonds a day
The renovated Bandra Kurla Complex laboratory raises capacity 30% and adds 40 full-time staff. India already provides 59% of HRD Antwerp's group revenue and is forecast to grow 15% this year.
Antwerp's laboratory scales in India. HRD Antwerp reopened its Mumbai laboratory able to grade 2,000 diamonds a day, 30% more than before, and hired 40 full-time staff. The facility sits in the Bandra Kurla Complex.
If you send goods to grade: ask Mumbai for its new turnaround before you book Antwerp. The queue moved.
If you cut in Surat: the nearest expanded lab is now a local one, not a Belgian one.
What this is not: a price signal. Capacity is a stated maximum, and no volumes were published.
| Measure | Figure | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Diamonds graded a day, renovated lab | 2,000 | stated capacity |
| Increase on the previous capacity | 30% | stated |
| New full-time employees | 40 | recruited |
| India's share of group revenue | 59% | current |
| Forecast growth, Indian branch | 15% | this year |
| Forecast growth, group | 13% | this year |
| Jewellery grading share of the revenue increase | 47% | as much as |
ICapacity moves to Mumbai
Two thousand a day. The renovated laboratory in the Bandra Kurla Complex can grade up to 2,000 diamonds daily, 30% above its previous capacity. HRD Antwerp has recruited 40 new full-time employees for it.
A prime minister attended. Belgium's prime minister, Bart De Wever, toured the office during the Mumbai visit that took him to the Bharat Diamond Bourse.
IIIndia carries the group
Fifty-nine percent of revenue. The Indian branch generates 59% of HRD Antwerp's total group revenue and is forecast to grow 15% this year, against 13% for the group overall.
Jewellery grading drives it. The company attributes as much as 47% of its total revenue increase to jewellery grading rather than to loose stones.
IIILaboratories follow the wheels
Not the first move. Between 90% and 95% of the world's rough is cut in India on the University of Antwerp's estimate. GSI began issuing pigeon-blood ruby calls from Jaipur last month, and IIGJ opened a 90-hour course with IIT Madras.
01What would change this call+
A grading queue in Mumbai that lengthens rather than shortens over the autumn. That would mean the capacity was absorbed on the day it opened, and the turnaround advice above would be worthless to anyone shipping goods.
02What a grading lab's capacity means+
Daily capacity is the number of stones a laboratory says it can take through its full sequence in a working day, from intake and weighing to instrument work, grading by more than one grader, laser inscription and report issue. It is a stated maximum at full staffing, not a count of stones graded, and it does not fix the turnaround a client is quoted, which depends on the queue in front of the stone.
03Method · the desk’s arithmetic+
Every figure here is HRD Antwerp's own, taken from Rapaport's report of 6 September 2026, 14:15 UTC: the 2,000 stones a day, the 30% capacity increase, the 40 new full-time employees, the 59% share of group revenue, the 15% and 13% growth forecasts and the 47% share of the revenue increase attributed to jewellery grading. Carat Capital did not obtain HRD Antwerp's own release and this is a single-source report. No investment figure, floor area or graded volume was published, so the capacity cannot be checked against throughput. The 90% to 95% Indian cutting share is the University of Antwerp's estimate, carried in Carat Capital's report of 6 September 2026.
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