De Beers’s flagship mines in Botswana are operating at about 80 per cent of capacity, signalling a marked improvement in the international diamond market less than a year after demand for the gems collapsed.

“Consumption has not improved to anywhere near the levels that we are accustomed to ... but the abrupt rate at which it [consumption] was dropping has started to stabilise,” Sheila Khama, chief executive of De Beers in Botswana told the Financial Times.