By KENNEDY MUPESENI –
THE new trend of blending emerald with diamond in making jewelry products  has created demand for emeralds, Gemcanton Investments Limited has said.
Operations director Eli Sher said the new trend was likely to increase investments in emerald mining destinations like Zambia.
“Emeralds are being combined with diamonds and other products to make jewelries thereby propelling demand for the emerald industry around the world and Zambia is set to benefit from the boom being endowed with the precious stones,” he said in an interview in Lufwanyama recently.
Mr Sher said the country had one of the finest emeralds and 80 per cent of the emeralds his company produce go India.
He said since the company acquired a 50 per cent stake in Grizzly Mining Limited a year ago, it has managed to participate in six emerald auctions which never happened before.
“Since we partnered with Grizzly, we have managed to participate in six auctions thereby putting the company on the world map in terms of visibility and on February 6, 2017 we will take part in the auction in India which is another milestone for the company,” Mr Sher said.
With increased demand, he said his company was on an expansion drive, going deeper in mining as well as buying off idle mining plots surrounding the mine to maximise production.
Mr Sher appealed to Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority (ZICTA) to deploy towers in the mining area to improve network responsiveness saying business transactions  was becoming difficult.
“Internet is very slow here, it is making transactions cumbersome, and you know we shifted Kitwe head office to be within production area here in Lufwanyama,” he said.