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Exports of Persian carpets, once the country’s chief export after oil, have fallen to their lowest level in 24 years.
Official customs the weight of Iran’s handmade carpet exportin the first 11 months of the last Iranian year dropped from 3,800 tons to 2,900, a 24 percent decrease in one year alone.
But the decline has been a long time in the making. Persian carpets generated over $2 billion for Iran in 1994, but only $69 million in 2019, and brought in a
mere $2 million in the second quarter of 2020.
Several factors, including the challenges to global logistics chains, rising costs of products and the pandemic, account for the major drop in one of the country’s most prized national treasures, famed around the world for centuries. Sanctions
have dealt local industries a fatal blow. The United States bans the import of Iranian carpets.
Faisal Mardasi, head of Iran’s National Carpet Center, told local media: “Our Indian,
Chinese, Afghan, Pakistani and Turkish competitors have entered the global carpet markets by copying Iranian designs.” Indeed, an Iran Times staffer visited a Chinese carpet factory several years ago and found that most of the carpets produced
used Iranian designs.
In Iran’s rural economy, carpets have been one of the country’s most crucial employ-
ment opportunities for many decades, providing a livelihood for millions of families.