Luanda, Jan 18 (IANS): Angola estimates to produce 10.5 million carats of diamonds in 2022 with a revenue of $1.4 billion, the country's National Diamond Company (Endiama) announced here.

The information was provided by Jose Ganga Junior, Endiama's CEO, while making to the press an assessment of the company's activities in 2021 and the projections for 2022, Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday.

The official was speaking on the occasion of the celebrations of the company's 41st anniversary, marked on January 15.

According to the Jose Ganga Junior, Endiama initially expected to produce 13.8 million carats of diamonds in 2022 with a revenue of around $1.9 billion, but due to the "current context and market prices" the company "corrected" the initial projections.

"The information we have today, in terms of diamonds, points to a certain contraction in terms of prices, which is why we prefer to be a little conservative, but if we manage to obtain substantially higher prices, we will all applaud."

Angola is the third largest producer of diamonds in Africa and has only explored 40 per cent of the diamond-rich territory within the country so far.

According to Statista, Angola's diamond production in 2020 amounted to 7.7 million carats, a decrease of 15.4 per cent compared to the previous year.

The country is among the world's largest diamond producers by volume.