The head of Iran National Carpet Center (INCC) announced that over the past Iranian year (which ended on March 20), the US has imported the biggest amount of hand-woven carpets from the Islamic Republic.
“Over the past year, about $350 million worth of Iranian hand-woven carpets have been exported to various countries,” Hamid Kargar announced.
The value of the exports have witnessed a 27 percent increase and their volume has jumped by 16.5 percent, he added.
“The US, Germany, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Japan, Britain, Qatar, South Africa and Australia were the ten biggest customers of the Iranian hand-woven carpets in the past year,” the official said.
Iran has recently stepped up efforts to enhance its non-oil exports and reduce dependency on its oil revenues.
This comes against the backdrop of a wave of renewed interest in ties with Iran after the country and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France, and Germany) reached a nuclear agreement in July 2015 and started implementing it in January 2016.
The comprehensive nuclear deal between Tehran and the six powers terminated all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran after coming into force.