FEATURES NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

Promoting Handicraft Industries
Right Policies Needed

By Khilendra Basnyat

NEPAL, which has a proud tradition of handicraft skills, is still famous for its handicraft products. Out of more than one thousand and three hundred registered in Kathmandu Valley, about one thousand and two hundred handicraft related industries are said to be under operation.

In the past, artisans of artistic and decorative goods such as statues, bells and other temple adornments maintained a high degree of skill and aesthetic value that such items were traded outside the country. These activities were practised at the local level with little attention to the institution of the process.

Handicraft industries contribute a small proportion to the national income. Ownership in handicraft industries is always private in the form of either a private firm or a private limited or partnership companies.

Handicrafts such as bronze and brass in Lalitpur, pottery in Thimi, wood carving and painting in Bhaktapur testifies that traditional genesis is still living.

No doubt, Nepalese handicrafts can play an important role in export trade, especially in exports to the north. However in the absence of appropriate programme to modernise the traditional indigenous techniques that are to be ascertained are slowly disappearing. Consequently, agricultural commodities began to play a significant role among Nepalese exports and the majority of Nepal’s imports became processed goods. Undoubtedly, this gave almost monopoly control over her trade to India.

Despite some advantages of handicrafts, the technology used in such industries is of subsistence nature and fails to maintain equality and costs at desired levels. Consequently, such industries are unable to compete with foreign goods.

The isolation and stagnation of ideas, in addition to the tendency of the inhabitants living near the Indian border to depend on the Indian market for goods, hindered technological advances. It is too late to bring in suitable and low-cost technology and familiarise entrepreneurs with it.

In fact, the seeds for the Nepalese textile industry were sown in the nineteenth century. The Anglo-Nepali trade treaty of 1923, which provided for a policy for free trade, gave a severe blow to our cottage and craft industries.

The effort to return hand-made goods to a position of respectability began before the revolution. In this regard, one of the earliest development projects was the establishment of a training centre for handicrafts in Kathmnadu with the aid from the Ford Foundation. However, the emphasis on crafts was latter shifted to the basic manual skills which in some cases did not testify to be useful or realistic taking into account the limitations of employment opportunities.

Since shortcomings have been felt on the part of the affiliated bodies in the variety of training programmes, they can be conducted smoothly through the accumulation of fund from district development committees and other concerned organisations.

In order to promote handicraft industries, marketing training should be conducted for the staff of handicraft sales centre and retail outlets so that they need not depend on intermediaries for selling their products, and buyers need to wander in search of such products.

Nepal’s great potential in skilled handiwork has been demonstrated by its curio industry and craft goods to be seen all over Kathmandu. Actually, it is necessary to have a fair degree of sustainability in these skills in new areas of handiwork. The cost of such handiwork is so high in developed countries and so low in Nepal that even with transport costs added, this handiwork could probably be sold at thirty to forty per cent below the prices of such goods produced in Europe.

Precision goods and jewelry have not flourished in our country. Since they have great demand in the world market, a determined effort towards establishing new industries in precision goods and jewelry should be a part of the government policy for overseas exports.

Despite steady growth, Nepalese handicrafts are one of the major export items. In 1999, the country earned about seventy million rupees by exporting handicrafts to over sixty-five countries of the world.

What is worth noting here is that Nepal is the only country that sells handicrafts of religious importance. No doubt, these items may be promoting Nepal in the international market.

Since the past few years, with the changing trends in shopping among the tourists visiting Nepal, many entrepreneurs engaged in handicraft business have taken up the pashmina business. Some handicraft businesses in Kathmandu valley have closed down their shutters because they have not been as profitable as in the past.

As pashmina has displaced quite a significant part of the handicraft business, either the handicraft sellers have to opt for pashmina or close down their shops.

In fact, handicraft business has dropped as compared to the previous years because the number of visitors is going down and there are a few spending tourists.

The inflow of Indian goods has a negative impact on the handicraft business in Kathmandu because over seventy-five per cent of the handicraft goods available in the market are Indian ones. In the past, there were only Nepalese handicraft products in markets, but nowadays duplication of Indian goods are found everywhere. This has adversely affected our handicraft goods.

Since plastic goods continue to replace the traditional woods and related ones; those, who have been engaged in the production and sale of the wooden pots for years, have been staying idle because the occupation yields no money. In the past, the wooden wares made by some wood workers were taken to Tibet for sale.

Most of the handicraft items have a steady growth of eleven to fifteen per cent over last five years except for the past fiscal year.

The handicraft business may virtually collapse if necessary steps are not taken to increase the number of tourists in our country. Apart from this, the highly potential handicraft needs to be given high priority for its development. In this context, right policies have to be formulated.

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