Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated the Surat Diamond Bourse, the world’s largest and modern centre for international diamond and jewellery business.

Mr Modi inaugurated the diamond bourse shortly after inaugurating a new integrated terminal building at the Surat airport, which is equipped to handle 1,200 domestic and 600 international passengers during peak hours. It also has a provision for further increasing the peak-hour capacity to 3,000 passengers with annual handling capacity increasing to 55 lakh passengers.

The diamond bourse building, the world’s largest office complex with more than 67 lakh sq ft of floor area, is located in Khajod village near Surat. The bourse will be a global centre for trading both rough and polished diamonds as well as jewellery.

The bourse comprises a state-of-the-art Customs Clearance House for import and export, a jewellery mall for retail jewellery business and facility for international banking and safe vaults. 

Several diamond traders, including those based in Mumbai earlier, have already taken possession of their offices, which were allotted by the management after the auction. 

The diamond bourse is a part of the Diamond Research and Mercantile (DREAM) City.

The bourse, built on a plot of 35.54 acres inside the DREAM City, has nine towers of 15 floors with office spaces ranging from 300 sq ft to 1 lakh sq ft. It will house nearly 4,500 diamond trading offices.