Carpet weavers in Faryabface plummeting sales

KABUL (Tolo News): The market for carpets from the northwestern province of Faryab province has dried up. Sellers of hand-woven carpets are dissatisfied with the decline in sales of hand-made rugs in the province.
According to merchants, sales of handicrafts and carpets have decreased in the country’s markets, especially in Faryab, saying that the price of carpets has decreased significantly compared to previous years. After the political change in the country, the lack of a market for weavers has affected them.
“The handicrafts sales were very good, but it has been almost a month now that there is no market for them. It is because of the poor economic situation of people in the country. When the people’s economy is weak, they do not come to us to buy carpets,” said Mazullah, a businessman. All the merchants of hand-woven carpet in the province say that the supply of Iranian machine-made carpets has hit the Afghan carpet weaving industry.
“The market was 100 percent good, but now it has changed a lot, the sales were good, but now I think it has dropped by seventy to eighty percent,” said a carpet weaver. “Afghan goods are sold under the name of Pakistan,” said Khair Mohammad, a carpet seller.
Meanwhile, the Faryab Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that industry in the province has been greatly reduced. Officials of the Faryab Chamber of Commerce and Industry blame the situation on government policies and the supply of Afghan wool to foreign countries at low prices, as well as the existing challenges to exporting Afghan products.
“Carpets are produced here and exported from our country to other countries, for example to Pakistan, and from Pakistan to other countries,” said Mohammad Alam, director of export development at the Faryab Chamber of Commerce. In previous years Afghanistan exported an average of nearly one billion dollars worth of products a year, of which the role of Afghan carpets and rugs were of particular importance. But with the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate, exports have dropped.