The Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH), which is gearing up to organise the 30th Indian Handicrafts and Gifts Fair (Autumn) 2010 in Noida from October 17-20, 2010 has informed that handicraft exports have gone up by 19% to touch US$120 million in July 2010 as against US$101 million during the same month last year, much to the cheer of hundreds of MSMEs in the sector.

According to Dr Santosh Tyagi, secretary of the Handicrafts Exporters Association, Agra to a Bizxchange correspondent. “There has been no extraordinary increase in demand in the international market. The growth that got registered last month was continuation of the automatic increase in demand as a result of revival of the US markets.”

Some of the handicraft items that have fuelled the international demand are imitation jewellery, shawls, woodwares, miscellaneous handicrafts and art metal wares.

“The export situation at present is definitely better than what it was last year. There has been an increase in demand from the US, which is keeping small players like us upbeat, but demand from the European market is still sluggish,” said Bhuwan Sharma, owner of Nandi Exporters, a mid-sized unit in New Delhi which exports handmade carpets.

Incidentally, EPCH is also planning to raise the number of international trade fairs that are organised in foreign countries in a year from 33 to 47. This would help to promote the products of the MSME-dominated handicraft export sector further.

Sreemita Bhattacharya