The reasons of reduced carpet production in Afghanistan: A case study of Aqcha district

Abstract

In short, handicraft and specially carpet knitting craft is one of the national industries of Afghanistan. Unfortunately, years of war in Afghanistan caused huge damage in its production and popularity. The purpose of this study was to investigate the main reasons behind the reduction of carpet production in Afghanistan. This research was carried out based on qualitative study. A total of 120 questionnaires were prepared according to probable systematic sampling method and desitributed among carpet weavers in Aqcha district. The data analysis was carried out by using SPSS software. The result of this study showed that carpet production in Afghanistan can be affected by the lack of proper market for carpet sale, lack of support and encouragement from the government, increased machine-made carpet imports, peoples’ low economy and inappropriate raw materials in the industry that have reduced the production of carpet industry in Afghanistan. Whereas, the research hypotheses suggest that the first hypothesis states that alpha was less than 0.05 (0.035) so our main hypothesis was rejected and we conclude that the absence of a market does not lead to a decrease in carpet production, the second hypothesis states that lack of government support reduces its production because the area is larger than the alpha (0.642). The third hypothesis states that because the area is significantly larger than 0.05 or alpha (0.727), so it was accepted as the main hypothesis that importing of machine-made carpets reduced the production of hand-made carpets in Afghaninstan.