With its headquarters in the heart of Antwerp’s diamond district, the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) today serves as the international representative of the Belgian diamond industry. In so doing it represents the collective interests of the sector with all municipal, provincial, regional, federal and international bodies, and also promotes Antwerp as the world’s leading diamond business centre.
 
The AWDC was established in October 1973 as the Hoge Raad voor Diamant (HRD), or Diamond High Council, at the initiative of the Belgian government and diamond industry representatives. Its stated mission was to protect and promote the diamond sector in Belgium, advance gemmological and technological research, nurture a specialised workforce for the industry, and manage the import and export of diamonds.
 
In 1974, the Diamond Office, a government body that had been created in 1946 to administer the flow of diamonds to and from Belgium and to oversee the regulation of the diamond sector, was transferred to the control of the HRD. A nominal levy—today worth 0.035 percent— was imposed on both imports and exports in order to help finance the new organisation.
 
Over the years, the HRD expanded to include departments offering professional services to the industry. The first was the Certificates Department, which developed into one of the world’s premier diamond grading laboratories. The Scientific Research Centre for Diamonds (WTCOD), an industry-wide research and development laboratory, became formally affiliated to the HRD in 1977. Technologies developed were commercialised through Comdiam, an equipment supplier created by the HRD. In the 1980s the Institute of Gemmology was established as an educational service offering training in diamond grading and gemmology. In 2000 the Gem Defence Initiative was set up to conduct fundamental research into the diamond, and in so doing support the integrity of HRD Grading Reports. Also established was a Precious Stones Laboratory to provide identification and grading services for the coloured gemstone industry.
 
A Public Relations division was established at the HRD already in the 1970s, and over the years it developed in a fully-fledged marketing department charged with promoting the interests of Belgian diamond companies worldwide. The department came to manage the representation of Belgian diamond companies at international jewellery trade shows, and it established “Antwerp Facets,” which began as a periodical trade magazine and came to include an electronic news service. Other activities included the establishment of the biennial HRD Awards competition, which is today the world’s leading contest for young diamond jewellery designers; and an ongoing series of stunning exhibitions of diamonds and diamond jewellery. Among the first were the “From the Treasury” exhibitions, which in 1993 and 1997 brought tens of thousands of visitors to Antwerp, where they were treated to what arguably were the most impressive collections of diamonds ever to be gathered in a single location.
 
In 2002, the PR & Marketing Department organised the first Antwerp Diamond Conference, which quickly developed into a milestone event for the world diamond industry and forum at which issues of the day are presented and discussed before an international audience. Among the speakers to have addressed the conference over the years are former U.S. President Bill Clinton, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, former Botswana President Festus Mogae, former South African President Thabo Mbeki, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Nobel Prize Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz.
 
The HRD’s International Affairs Department was created in 1999 and came to play a critical role in the eradication of conflict diamonds, which had emerged as serious humanitarian issue toward the end of the 1990s. It was instrumental through the World Diamond Council in the establishment of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme in 2003, which was endorsed by the United Nations Security Council. Together with the HRD’s IT Department it assisted the governments of Sierra Leone, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo in creating computerised systems for monitoring exports of rough diamonds from their countries.
 
In May 2007 the HRD was restructured, with the AWDC was created as a public foundation that is solely responsible for the representation, advocacy and defence of the Antwerp centre, and also the promotion and marketing of Antwerp as a world diamond centre. This would include the HRD Awards, the Antwerp Diamond Conferences and Symposiums, the organisation of jewellery exhibitions and the participation of companies from Antwerp at trade shows.
 
The former HRD’s commercial functions and services were incorporated into a company called HRD Antwerp NV, which would be a subsidiary of the AWDC. It is comprised of six units: The HRD Antwerp Diamond Lab, the HRD Antwerp Precious Stones Lab, HRD Antwerp Education, HRD Antwerp Research, HRD Antwerp Equipment and the HRD Antwerp Graduates Club. As part of the AWDC’s new corporate identity, the organisation adopted the campaign slogan “Diamonds Love Antwerp.” The restructuring was part of a major overhaul of the Belgian diamond sector, which also called for a streamlining of regulations and tax collection, customs and the social security structure. It aims to maintain Antwerp as the leader of the modern-day diamond trade.