KARACHI, Sept 1: Exporters and manufacturers of hand-knotted carpets have made spot sales worth Rs1 billion and also booked a large number of export orders during a three-day exhibition held at Expo Centre, Karachi.

The Pakistan Hand Knotted Carpet Exhibition-2003 ended on Sunday. A large number of foreign buyers attended the fair organized by the Pakistan Carpets Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PCMEA) and the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB).

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.

The total growth in exports during the fiscal 2002-03, he said, amounted to $2 billion, of which $1.4 billion were contributed by the textile sector and rice. Leather, carpets, surgical and sport goods and molasses fetched $107 million. The export of non-traditional products recorded a growth of $150 million.

He said Pakistan was the only country in the world that maintained tempo of growth in exports and other sectors of the economy despite the worst catastrophes in the form of the 9/11 tragedy, wars and tensions on borders. All the credit of this achievement, he said, went to exporters who took the challenge and managed to break the psychological barrier of $9 billion in exports.

Nevertheless, he said that a lot had yet to be achieved and the most urgent challenges facing the country included fading of textile quotas, issues related to the child labour and compliance of labour and social regulations.