PESHAWAR, Jan 23: Afghan carpet dealers have started transferring capital from Pakistan to Afghanistan suspending work on the multi-million rupees carpet town scheme at Chamkani in the outskirts of Peshawar.
The future of the proposed carpet weaving project plunged into darkness after the repatriation of many skilled Afghan artisans— mostly of the Uzbek and Hazara origin— pinning all their hopes on Afghan interim government’s peace efforts.
According to market forces, return of a number of carpet weavers following the debacle of Taliban regime had adversely affected carpet business related economic activities in the provincial capital.
A 60-member team of Afghan traders and businessmen from Peshawar and Islamabad recently visited Kabul and discussed investment opportunities.
A member of the delegation told Dawn that the interim government had asked the Afghan traders to shift their capital and assured them of an investment friendly environment.
Businessmen in Peshawar feared that the repatriation of skilled manpower and transfer of capital to Afghanistan would be a serious blow to the newly-born carpet industry of the NWFP.
The business of hand-knotted carpets have flourished in the frontier province during the last half decade. In 2000-01, according to the All Pakistan Commercial Export Association, $130 million carpets had been exported from the NWFP to Europe and America while from July to December 2001 the carpet-export figures touched $42 million.
An Afghan carpet dealer Haji Wali Jan said the prevailing recession in the international market and the return of skilled artisans to Afghanistan had affected carpet business in the local market. He said,”I have never experienced such a slowdown in the carpet business during the last few years and many traders have no money, even to pay rent of their shops”.
He said, 95 per cent carpet dealers in Shoba Bazaar Peshawar were Afghans and majority of them would go back to Afghanistan after the proposed Loya Jirga that may be held in April.
The NWFP government had leased out some 90 acres of land to Afghan carpet dealers at Chamkani to set up carpet weaving units at an estimated cost of Rs180 million.
Initially 60,000 Afghan artisans were to engage in the town. Besides, 75 acres of land was allotted to the Afghan investors at Khurasan Camp, Peshawar, for setting up another carpet town to boost carpet and rugs export.
But when the Taliban government collapsed in November 2001, the investors changed their mind and suspended work on the project.
Chamkani Carpet Town Deputy Managing Director Haji Wali Ullah Ghulam told Dawn that initially 470 carpet makers had got registered their units, but after the fall of the Taliban government they refused to further invest in Pakistan.
The carpet unit owners had been given one-month notice to start their work, otherwise the authorities would have left no other option but to dispose of the project, he said.
Wali Ullah said, according to the pact the provincial government was bound to provide gas, electricity, telephone and road facilities to the proposed carpet town by October 2001, but the commitments had not been fulfilled. “We are still committed to revive the project if the government provided facilities”, he said.
He said, over two million Afghan refugees were directly and indirectly associated with the carpet business in Pakistan and roughly 80,000 square meter carpets were produced per month in the local market.