 A 10-day Indian Handicraft Festival, organized in Argentina by the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH), generated business and serious enquiries worth over Rs. 1.05 billion, informed the council.
Considering the trend at the festival, the EPCH Executive Director, Mr. Rakesh Kumar expects that handicraft exports from India will see a complete turnaround in the month of April next year.
The global economic slowdown caused a dip of around 14 percent in handicraft exports during fiscal 2008-09, after witnessing an average annual growth of about 17 percent during the years 2000-01 to 2007-2008.
To grab new markets for Indian handicraft products was the key purpose of EPCH behind organizing this festival. Traditional markets for these products are US, EU and Middle East. The US imports 38 percent of handicraft products from India, followed by Germany with a share of 14 per cent and UK accounting for around 10 percent of exports.
Now, Argentina is becoming a substantial market for Indian handicraft products with an average growth rate of 12 percent. In the year 2005-06, Argentina imported handicraft products worth US $4.8 million and in 2007-08 these imports improved to $4.96 million, while last year it dropped down to $3.13 million due to global meltdown.
The festival witnessed the participation of around 35 Indian companies, which displayed variety of products such as Christmas decoration, costume jewelry and accessories, incense sticks, home decoration and giftware, furniture and fixtures and textiles.
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