An Iranian official says that exports of handicrafts from the country has reached $300 million per year.
The main destinations for these exports are the Persian Gulf littoral states and Iraq, said Mohamad-Hossein Askarpour, a senior official from Iran’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts, on Wednesday.
He made this announcement during his visit to a handicrafts exhibition in Torbat-e Heydariyeh, a city in the northeastern Iranian province of Razavi Khorasan.
Askarpour also said that about 520,000 Iranian artists are currently active in 299 fields of handicrafts in the country. He said the government is planning to increase this number in the future by offering more support to the sector.
Iranian handicrafts, including handwoven Persian carpets, are well-known and popular across the world.
Iranian handicrafts sector has created jobs for more than 2.5 million people of which some 1.5 million are registered in government data bases and around 0.5 million are licensed workers.
