From now on, Iran's hand-woven carpet will be exported with the WIPO badge to preserve the authenticity and identity of the Iranian art industry in the international arena, She noted.
She described the global registration of a badge for hand-woven carpets as a great move towards preserving and protecting this original art industry.
The badge was designed by a company from South Korea for free and registered with the support of WIPO, she added.
WIPO is one of the 17 specialized agencies of the United Nations, which was set up in 1967 to encourage creative activity and promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world.
The registration process at the World Intellectual Property Organization lasts a year; after the scientific process, if there are no mistakes, the case for the review and comment of the member states of the treaty of Lisbon is sent.
Lisbon Treaty was approved in 1958 to support the source and its international registration of carpets, and Iran is also a member of it.
France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Algeria, Turkey, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Congo, Cuba, Czech Republic, North Korea, Gabon, Georgia, Greece, Haiti, Hungary, Montenegro, Morocco, Nicaragua, Peru, Portugal, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Macedonia, Togo, and Tunisia are among members of the Treaty of Lisbon.
Earlier Rafe’ told IRNA that Iran’s hand-woven carpet production saw a 34-percent increase in the first 10 months of last Persian year (March 20, 2020-January 21, 2021).
She said that 1,869,304 square meters of hand-woven carpet were woven in Iran in that period while the figure for the same period in the previous year was 1,231,321 square meters.
42 percent of carpets manufactured were commercial, 19 percent thick-knot, 16 percent subtle-know and wool, 9 percent tapestry, 8 percent Gabbeh, and 6 percent full-silk carpets, she added.
She went on to say that 10,140 business units are active in the hand-woven carpet industry in Iran, among which 2,787 are centralized workshops, 7,256 non-centralized workshops, and 97 are great carpet weaving complexes.
By and large, 12,625 business units in this area have made 191,545 jobs, she pointed out.
She highlighted that the coronavirus pandemic made many craftspeople who had left the carpet industry return and this caused the production of hand-woven carpets to grow 400 percent.
Some 95 countries have been trading under tariff number 5701, including any type of carpet. But only eight countries; namely, Iran, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Turkey, China, and Afghanistan, have been active in hand-woven carpet trading.
While global exports in hand-woven carpets hit 1.459 billion dollars in 2016, the number has been decreasing continually in recent years.
Iran had a share of 7.9 percent in the hand-woven carpet exports market in 2019 when India was the top exporter with a 31.7 percent share, followed by Egypt with 18.2 percent.
Iran was in third place and Nepal with 6.5 percent, Pakistan with 6.2 percent, Turkey with 4.7 percent, and China with 3.8 percent secured next places.
Hand-woven carpet has created job opportunities for over two million Iranian workers.
Carpet weaving is a well-known Iranian art worldwide and is also very popular in various Iranian cities particularly Kerman, Isfahan, and Chahar Mahal, and Bakhtiari provinces.
Translated and compiled by Amin Mohammadzadegan Khoyi
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