US demand for diamond jewelry was strong in the holiday season as seen in the country's polished diamond imports data for November.
The government figures showed an 11% surge on the year in November, with imports of $1.77 billion.
In further good news for the global diamond industry – which relies heavily on sales to the world's largest market – there was also a 26% rise in the average price of imports to $2,573 per carat, according to a report by Rapaport.
The news was not all good, however, since there was a 12% decline on the year in volume terms to 687,000 carats.
The United States saw strong jewelry sales in the second half of last year, with IDEX Online reporting sales of fine jewelry and fine watches up by 8.4 percent in the US in November.
Sales of jewelry were an estimated $8.2 billion, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Commerce Department.
Meanwhile, US exports of polished diamonds fell 13% to $1.48 billion in November, meaning more polished stones were staying in the United States.
The polished trade figures for November compensated somewhat for the statistics in the earlier part of 2017, but the first 11 months of the year still showed a decline in imports on the year before of 6% to $20.1 billion.
