Handicrafts exports grow 24 pc in Jan

NEW DELHI: India's handicrafts exports grew by 24 per cent year-on-year to USD 178 million in January on account of rising demand from markets like the US.

In January last year, these exports stood at USD 143 million, according to the data provided by the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH).

"We are getting good response from the US markets, besides new markets like Latin America and Africa," EPCH Executive Director Rakesh Kumar said.

He, however, said demand is sluggish in the European market due to fragile economic growth.

The US and European Union together account for 70 per cent of the country's handcraft exports.

The council is expecting to achieve the export target of USD 2.7 billion in the current fiscal.

"We have done well in the past few months. We expect to achieve the target as exports orders are usually more in the last three months of the fiscal," Kumar said.

In the 2010-11 fiscal, these exports touched USD 2.3 billion in value terms.

During April-January this fiscal, handicrafts exports went up by about 19 per cent to USD 1.8 billion from USD 1.5 billion in the same period of last fiscal.

The handicrafts sector employs one million people. Moradabad, Jaipur, Saharanpur and Jodhpur are the major handicraft hubs in the country catering to global markets.