India is one of the major exporters and supplier of handicrafts and gift products to the world market. The Indian handicrafts industry is highly labour intensive and decentralized, being spread all across the country in rural and urban areas. The sector is considered as the second largest employment-generating sector after agriculture with numerous artisans engaged in craft work on a part-time basis. The industry offers employment to over 6 million artisans, including a large number of women and people from the weaker sections of society.
The sector is economically important from the point of view of low capital investment, high ratio of value addition, and high potential for export and foreign exchange earnings for the country. The major handicraft products exported from India are art metalware, wooden artwares, hand printed textiles and scarves, embroidered goods, marble and stone craft, terracotta, zari and zari goods, papier machine craft, artistic leather goods and imitation jewellery. The European Union, USA, UK, Canada, Japan and South America are some of the major export destinations.
IGEP Trust has worked closely with the Export Promotion Council of Handicrafts (EPCH) to promote the growth of the Indian handicrafts industry. IGEP’s support has been in the form of marketing, training and product development. In terms of marketing assistance, IGEP Trust has organized several “Indian Pavilions” in major handicrafts and gifts trade fairs in Germany such as Cadeaux in Leipzig, Ambiente in Frankfurt and Heim + Handwork in Munich. As a result of these international exposures, Indian handicraft exports have been able to expand their presence globally. IGEP Trust has also assisted in setting up several training centres in major handicraft clusters. For example, IGEP Trust signed a cooperation with the Rajasthan Small Industries Corporation (RSIC) to operate their common facility centre for handicraft exporters in Jodhpur. IGEP set up a state of art word working and training centre - The National Training Centre for Woodcraft and Design (NTCWTD) in Jodhpur. This training centre boosted of the latest machines in wood working. The centre equipped with a faculty consisting of a German expert engaged through CIM/GIZ and two locally recruited wood working machine trainers. The centre has been conducting training for the rural youth in and around Jodhpur. Once training was over these trainees were absorbed by the local handicraft exporting units both in Jodhpur and Jaipur as well as in other states.
