During a three-day Pakistan Hand Knotted Carpet Exhibition-2003, held at Expo Centre, Karachi the exporters and manufacturers of hand-knotted carpets have made spot sales worth Rs1 billion and also booked a large number of export orders.

The exhibition was jointly organized by the Pakistan Carpets Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PCMEA) and the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) a large number of foreign buyers attended the fair.

This was the first time after the 9/11 incident and subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that a record number of 164 foreign buyers from the US to Australia attended the carpet show.

The buyers appreciated and praised the advancement made by the carpet industry in Pakistan and said that the new generation Pakistani carpets could compete well with the carpets made in Iran and Turkey.

Most of the exhibitors sold their entire stocks and in fact fell short to ready stocks the buyers wanted to buy. However, future supply orders were booked by the exporters.

Addressing the concluding session of the show on Sunday, PCMEA exhibition committee chairman Sattar Mir said that both the sellers and the buyers left the show with full business satisfaction and all the goals and targets of the exhibition were fully met.

He asked the EPB to arrange a 500-acre of land in Sohrab Goth area to build a carpet house having all weaving, washing and colouring facilities under one roof. The house, he said, would meet all the labour and social compliance regulations of the WTO.

Minister of State and EPB Chairman Tariq Ikram while addressing the participants said the success of the show was the result of the road-map drawn for diversification and expansion of exports about three years ago.