On January 31 ALROSA jointly with the Tokyo Diamond Exchange held its first auction for polished diamonds abroad. The company offered for sale diamonds cut and polished at its Brillianty ALROSA diamond manufacturing division. The auction came at the close of IJT 2005 - International Jewellery Tokyo, the first for the Russian diamond producer as an ehxibitor.

On offer were fifty-three 1 to 22- carater diamonds altogether weighing 155.16 carats with initial value of USD 1.5 million. 20 Japanese diamond companies took part in the auction. 11 diamonds altogether weighing 49.36 carats were sold for USD 410,000. The largest stone weighed 18. 93 carats.

All the diamonds offered for sale by ALROSA had GIA certificates. Commenting on the results, ALROSA vice-president Youri Dudenkov remarked that the first auction came as a confirmation of good opportunities for ALROSA in the Japanese market, second largest in the world in terms of diamond and diamond jewellery sales after the USA. The participation in IJT allowed ALROSA to accumulate valuable information for further research concerning this new market.