Hamid Kargar told reporters during the opening ceremony of Qom Hand-Woven Carpet Exhibition on Wednesday that sanctions hardly hit the export of rug to the mainland US; “however, in the times post-JCPOA, we expect to see a skyrocketing of Iranian hand-woven rug in US markets; Pakistan and India had replaced Iran during the time sanctions stifled Iranian rug exports to the US,” he told reporters.
“The Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Mines are waging laudable efforts so that Iranian hand-woven rug finds strong footholds in the US markets; it is key to success in any carpet export enterprise; in May 2016, US businessmen and moguls of carpet market will be in Kish Island to know more about Iran’s carpet industry, and Iranian carpet traders will participate in Turkey’s Antalya port city exhibition on carpet,” Kargar detailed. “Rug industry has huge potentials in job creation, such that with only $ 1,410 of raw material, a job is created. Apart from economic benefit, rug is a cultural and artistic product, almost Iran’s cultural ambassador to the world at large. The sense of common destiny and unity among carpet weavers are exemplary,” he told the media.
Kargar also lamented the fact that in the absence of Iranian carpet, countries had grasped the opportunity to forge new identity for their carpet abusing the product to make a national cultural product of their own; “in response to this abuse, Iran’s different regional carpet products was registered in World Intellectual Property Organization, covering 15 geographical regions of Iran; creating the identity of Iranian carpet is a priority to bestow upon it a specific Iranian originality,” he added.
Kargar touched upon a major issue of social security for workers of the industry as the major contributors to flourishing of the industry, that is, weavers; “this is a pressing issue due to the non-allocation of resources by the Parliament; so far, 500,000 such workers had been covered by social security, almost the same number of weavers remain outside the coverage, while the amount of the value of exports of hand-woven carpets to over 80 countries exceeds $ 142m in the 7 months of the current year,” Kargar said.
SH/2970622
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