Update on 7th Annual Meeting of World Diamond Council in St. Petersburg

Preparations are moving into high gear for the 7th Annual Meeting of the World Diamond Council (WDC), which will take place in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 14 and 15, 2010. The event is being hosted by the Diamond Chamber of Russia.

Proceedings will begin at 2:00 P.M. on Wednesday, July 14, with a series of committee meetings at the Astoria Hotel, which is located on St. Isaac's Square in the St. Petersburg city center. An opening reception will be held that evening. The WDC Plenary Meeting will take place from 9:00 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. on Thursday, July 15, and the day will end with a gala dinner, attended by senior members of the Russian government and mining sector.

Several of St. Petersburg's most stunning landmarks will serve as venues for events of the WDC Annual Meeting. These include the Peter and Paul Fortress, which is where Peter the Great placed the first stone for the city's establishment in 1703; the Naryshkin Bastion, where on October 25, 1917, the signal marking start of the Russian Revolution was given; the Marble Palace, which was commissioned by Empress Catherine the Great and built between 1768 and 1785; and the Engineering Palace, which also is known as Mikhailovsky Castle.

A cultural program has been organized for people accompanying delegates to the WDC Annual Meeting. It will include visits to the State Hermitage, one of the world's most celebrated museums, and the Peterhof, which is a complex of palaces and fountains that is often referred to as the "Russian Versailles,"

Registration for the WDC Annual Meeting is underway on a dedicated mini-website at
www.diamond-chamber.ru/wdceng.htm. Registration forms can be downloaded in PDF format from the website, and once completed must be returned to the official agent of the meeting, the Restec Exhibition Company. Information about hotel accommodation in St. Petersburg is included in the registration documents.

Delegates to the WDC Meeting must register officially via the website in order to be able to attend the plenary session, the organizers stress. This includes those who will be traveling to St. Petersburg from Moscow, where they would have been attending the World Diamond Congress of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) and the International Diamond Manufacturers Association (IDMA).