Iran’s machine-made carpet industry has a high potential that has not yet been identified and operationalized.
Considering that Iran has a domestic market of 80 million people and the importance of carpets in Iranian culture, most Iranians have several machine-made carpets in their homes.
Hence, the Iranian domestic market has always been active and highly demanded. The volume of Iran’s domestic market is about 65 million square meters. Every year, millions of square meters of carpets are produced more than the domestic market consumption, which needs to be exported to foreign countries.
Overproduction in the Iranian market has caused a lot of competition between manufacturers to take over the domestic market. Companies always try to offer higher quality and more innovative products with more recent designs and patterns. It can be said that the domestic market of Iranian machine-made carpets is almost saturated.
Iran’s machine-made carpet industry is the country’s Locomotive Export
Machine-made carpet is currently the strongest and most active sector of Iran’s textile industry, accounting for about one-third of Iran’s total textile exports. Iran’s machine-made carpet industry supplies the domestic market of 80 million people (with an annual need of about 50 million square meters of various types of machine-made carpets). In addition, the export of Iranian machine-made carpets is valued at about $ 350 million.
At present, most of the Iranian machine-made carpets are exported to Iran’s neighbouring countries, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, Iranian machine-made carpets can easily enter the markets of Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world due to their high quality and standards.
The only reason for Iran’s absence in these markets is economic sanctions and the difficulty of money transfers. By removing economic sanctions, a bright future awaits the export of the Iranian machine-made carpet industry.
Machine-made carpets and variety in production
According to the vision document of Iran’s machine-made carpet industry, by 2025, Iran’s machine-made carpet exports will reach one billion dollars. 80% of carpets produced in Iran are made of acrylic fibers, and the rest are made of polypropylene and polyester.
There are several acrylic yarn spinning mills in Iran. Acrylic fibers in Iran are imported from countries including Germany, India, South Korea, Spain, China, Taiwan, etc. In the last decade, due to the increase in the production of products intended for export, the production of lightweight polyester carpets in the Iranian market has grown rapidly.
On the other hand, raw materials for polyester yarn production are abundant in Iran. This can be an advantage for exporting machine-made carpets to control the price of raw materials.
In the last decade, many old machines for the production of machine-made carpets in Iran have been replaced by modern machines with higher quality. Currently, the production of 500/700/1000/1200 and 1500 reeds carpets is prevalent in Iran. The old machines of 330 and 400 reeds are being transferred to neighbouring countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
It can be boldly said that constantly the latest technologies in machine-made carpet weaving are installed and launched in Iran, which means that the technology of carpet weaving machines in Iran is at the level of developed countries such as Turkey and Belgium.
