Amid poor economy, Kabul residents turn to carpet weaving

KABUL (TOLOnews): Due to the country’s high unemployment rate, some Kabul residents have turned to carpet weaving in recent months.
They said that they need to find a means of support in order to survive.
Kabul resident Mustafa has been working with his young child to weave carpets for several months.
“The business has dropped. It is not dropped actually, it no longer exists. I used work on carpet weaving, so I thought to start it again during Ramadan to earn some money,” Mustafa said.
“It has been 4 to 5 years that I worked in a bakery and the rest of the family was carpet weaving. Now as there is no good work at the bakery, I myself started working on carpets,” said Mahdi, another resident of Kabul.
Owners of carpet factories said that during the past two years many people have requested employment as carpet weavers in the nation.
In the meantime, the Afghanistan Carpet Producers and Exporters Union stated that as carpet production rises, so will its exports to other nations.
“When the product increases, the exports of carpets also surge. 95 percent of the carpets are being exported and only five percent are being used in Afghanistan,” said Noor Ahmad Noori, deputy of the Afghanistan Carpet Producers and Exporters Union.
Factory owners complained of difficulties importing raw materials into Afghanistan and the smuggling of Afghan carpets into other neighbouring nations.