Botswana’s diamonds get a direct route to Dubai under new trade corridor

Dubai link will connect Botswana’s diamonds, copper and farm exports with global buyers

Last updated: July 15, 2026 | 12:11

Nivetha Dayanand, Assistant Business Editor

2 MIN READ

Agreement establishes Africa's first multi-commodity sister-hub trading corridor between Dubai and Gaborone and establishes dedicated Botswana trade presence in DMCC.

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Dubai: Botswana’s diamonds, copper, minerals and agricultural products will gain wider access to global buyers through a new trading corridor connecting Dubai and Gaborone.

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DMCC and the Botswana Stock Exchange Group have signed an agreement to establish what they described as Africa’s first multi-commodity sister-hub corridor, linking Botswana’s emerging commodities exchange with Dubai’s trade, finance and logistics network.

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The partnership will cover diamonds, copper, coal, soda ash, critical minerals, beef and agricultural products, while creating a dedicated Botswana trade presence within DMCC’s commodity ecosystem.

Diamond tenders will open the corridor

One of the first commercial initiatives will connect the Okavango Diamond Company with the Dubai Diamond Exchange through coordinated tenders.

The first tenders are expected in late 2026, creating a direct commercial route between Botswana’s diamond production and Dubai’s trading market.

The agreement will also support joint work promoting natural diamonds through the Luanda Accord and the Natural Diamond Council.

Access to finance and global buyers

The two organisations will work together across trade finance, logistics, vaulting, digital infrastructure, professional training and knowledge exchange.

The corridor is intended to connect Botswana’s producers more directly with international buyers, investors, institutional capital and Islamic finance markets.

DMCC and the Botswana Stock Exchange Group will also explore the use of DMCC FinX to widen access to financing for Botswana-origin commodities.

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The planned work includes Shariah-compliant instruments and the tokenisation of physical commodity parcels into real-world assets, opening another potential route for institutional investment into African commodity supply chains.

Botswana Minister of Minerals and Energy Bogolo Joy Kenewendo said the agreement supported the country’s plans to extract greater value from its resources.

New commodities vault planned

The partnership will examine the development of recognised standards and infrastructure supporting commodity trading across Africa.

A Botswana Mercantile Exchange vault planned for Gaborone is targeted to become the first facility certified under the DMCC Global Good Delivery Standard.

The framework is designed to support cross-border trade, commodity financing and transparency across emerging markets.

The agreement was signed in Singapore following the 41st World Diamond Congress, where DMCC also launched its Future of Trade 2026 report.

Nivetha DayanandAssistant Business Editor

Nivetha Dayanand is Assistant Business Editor at Gulf News, covering aviation, financial markets and commodities. A business and financial journalist with a strong interest in multimedia storytelling, she regularly takes complex financial and economic subjects beyond the written word, producing explainer videos that make them easier for a wider audience to understand. Nivetha has interviewed senior policymakers, business leaders and global financial figures both on and off camera. Her past guests include UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud, a member of the House of Saud and the founder and CEO of KBW Ventures, Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund and Indian ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and N. Chandrababu Naidu. She has also hosted and moderated panels, conferences and awards shows, bringing her newsroom experience to live conversations on business, finance and the economy. An Erasmus Mundus journalism alum, Nivetha is drawn to stories that affect people directly and to reporting that gives a platform to voices that might otherwise go unheard. She was among the first journalists to speak to Petrofac employees in the UAE about unpaid salaries, broke the news of the planned demolition of Dubai’s well-known “Toyota Building”, and helped set the record straight on widely circulated claims that a giant replica of the Moon was coming to Dubai. More recently, her exclusive interview with EDGE Group CEO Hamad Al Marar revealed how the UAE-based defence group deployed its systems along the country’s shore border and established a geofence around the UAE within 48 hours of the February 28 escalation. Prior to joining Gulf News, Nivetha worked at ITP Media, where she helped launch Finance Middle East, a new publication covering the region’s financial sector. Her role spanned reporting and editing, video production, interviews and events. Across print, digital, and video, she focuses on finding the people behind business stories and explaining why those stories matter to the audience reading or watching them.

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