Head of Iran’s National Carpet Center (INNC) Hamid Kargar says hand-woven carpet “is a multi-faceted subject in cultural, economic, social and employment fields. It also generates valuable foreign exchange.”
INNC as the “guardian of the carpet industry should take a holistic approach to hand-woven carpets,” he said.
Talking to IRNA, Kargar further said one of the main programs of the center is propagation and dissemination of information on the world-famous hand-woven Persian carpet. Foreign and domestic markets would be targeted.
“In order to propagate hand-woven Persian carpet all information tools should be employed including the media and organizing special exhibitions and even sending carpet producers to other countries as trade delegations,” he noted.
He pointed to the provision of banking facilities, insurance for carpet weavers and training of all those involved in the industry as measures taken so far for the development of this valuable heritage.
Kargar said one of the important measures launched to support hand-woven Persian carpets was registration of carpet patterns and motifs in the name of their creators, namely the weavers, and added that the National Library of Iran and the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance have cooperated in this regard.
Cash Subsidies Blamed
It may be recalled that Ibrahim Azizi, deputy head of INCC had earlier noted that “thanks to cash subsidies carpet weavers are slowly withdrawing from the industry.”
Since 2010, due to cash sops many hand-made carpet weavers had quit the profession as the money met part of their living costs.
Although it was expected that the manufacturing sector would improve after receiving subsidy, however, that didn’t happen, he stated.
“There are no exact statistics on the number of weavers in the country, and all figures provided are based on official estimates,” he said.
Further, there is also no authentic information on the number of carpet looms and annual handmade carpet production in the country. “We are presently trying to gather statistics about the number of weavers and looms, and annual production rate of handmade carpets,” he added.
