LAHORE: The Pakistan Carpet Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PCMEA) Sunday stressed the need for devising all-inclusive strategy to promote handwoven carpets.

The Association also decided to start preliminary preparations for participation in exhibitions, going to be held in Pakistan and abroad this year. A strategy would also be devised to utilise modern tools for effective promotion and marketing of hand-woven carpets.

The executive committee of the association held a meeting under the chairmanship of Naeem Khokhar. Senior Vice Chairman Usman Ashraf, Senior Central Leader Abdul Latif Malik, Chairperson of Carpet Training Institute Ejazur Rehman, Senior Member Riaz Ahmed, Saeed Khan, Shahid Hasan, Major Akhtar Nazir (retd), Akbar Malik, Kamran Razi, Umeer participated in the meeting through video-link.

They said that exporters were unable to do business and grab export orders due to political uncertainty and fluctuations in the dollar rate against Pak rupee.

In the meeting, a detailed discussion was held about the difficulties faced by the hand-made carpets industry on various fronts.

Senior Vice Chairman Usman Ashraf informed the meeting about participation in the Domotax exhibition held recently in Germany.

PCMEA office-bearers discussed the ways and means to fetch increased export orders through participation in the Domotex exhibition to be held in Turkey next year.

They also made preliminary consultations regarding the organization of international exhibition of handmade carpets at Karachi Expo Centre in May this year. They were of the view that display of Pakistani’s handmade carpets at the exhibition would prove to be instrumental in enhancing our carpet exports.