Handicraft business for import reduction: Minister Bhandari

Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies, Damodar Bhandari, has recognized the role of handicrafts business in reducing the country’s imports.

In his address to an interaction organised by the Federation of Handicraft Associations of Nepal here Friday, the Minister said the handicraft business itself carries a great potential for contributing to the discouragement of imports, for which use of capital and technology is essential.

As he said, the handicraft business is not just a trade, but visibility of country’s culture and heritage. It has also the role on employment creation.

On the occasion, the Minister shared about the government’s preparations for implementing the draft of the Handicrafts Development Policy submitted by the Federation.

According to him, the government is making efforts to establish the SAARC Handicrafts Design Centre in Nepal on the public-private partnership model in a bid to provide necessary guidelines and services to handicrafts entrepreneurs in an integrated way.

Such services include design, development, quality certification, marketing and entrepreneurship schemes and so on. He shared that a building for the proposed SAARC Handicrafts Design Centre has been readied at Tripureshwor and the government is preparing to endorse the procedures to operate the facility.

He pledged that the government would leave no stone unturned to promote handicraft items listed in the Nepal Trade Integration Strategy formulated by the Ministry to promote industry and enterprises properly.