Consultant To Help Expand Afghan Carpet Industry

Washington, DC, Aug. 16, 2010--The Pentagon is poised to award a one-year, no-bid contract worth about $1 million to Tremayne Consulting to expand the market for Afghan carpets, a senior defense official said, speaking anonymously under rules set by the Pentagon, according to a story in the Washington Post.

The project is modeled on an initiative in Iraq, the Post said, where the Pentagon sought to rebuild the carpet business after the Coalition Provisional Authority disbanded all state-owned enterprises. And, just as in Iraq, the Pentagon is turning to the same expert -- London-based Richard Ringrose, for many years the vice president for Oriental carpets at New York's ABC Carpet.

According to the Post story, there is no Afghan "brand" for rugs on the worldwide market. And instead of mass-production factories, the country has a cottage industry of weavers working mostly out of their homes. Ninety-five percent of the rugs produced in Afghanistan are shipped to Pakistan for washing and finishing, then labeled "Pakistani" rugs, according to a 2006 report by the USAID-sponsored Afghanistan Competitiveness Project.