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“Over 7,300 trade visitors including international buyers, buying agents and domestic volume retailers interacted with India's handicraft sector making it the world's largest fair of Indian handicrafts, home, lifestyles and fashion products,” said Rakesh Kumar, executive director of EPCH, in a statement.

The spectacular display of traditional Indian art and craft mesmerised overseas volume buyers from more than 110 countries, at the three-day event.

Textiles secretary SK Panda said that artisans need to target high-end customer. For this purpose, an online directory of handicraft products will be made based on locations along with contact details of artisans from each cluster for buyers to get in touch with them directly.

More than 1,600 types of products including home furnishing, home textiles, linens and made-ups, bags, scarves, ties, bags and cases, carpets, rugs and floorings, natural fibres and hand woven mats, were  displayed at the fair.

In addition, over 200 small and tiny exporters and craftspersons, those who are yet to become exporters, were also invited to display their products at the fair. They included Chikankari, zari and zardozi product makers from Lucknow and hand embroidered shawls and stoles producers from Jammu and Kashmir.

Various knowledge seminars were held on topics such as importance of social media to maximise presence and sales, opportunities and export strategies for handicrafts products in CIS market, export opportunities in Latin America through warehousing facility at Uruguay, increase in export through effective digital medium and skill development in handicrafts and carpet sector, to name a few.

Despite the overall slump in exports in various commodities, the exports of handicrafts in the first six months of 2015-16 stood at Rs 9108.41 crore, registering a growth of 9.92 per cent in rupee terms.

Handicrafts exports have been growing steadily during the last decade. During 2014-15 they grew by 7.96 per cent in rupee terms and 6.82 per cent in dollar terms and touched Rs 18,639.14 crore. (HO)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India