Summary of this article
Handicraft traders in Kashmir are not hopeful that the ceasefire would bring relief to them and help resume the supplies to West Asia
The war has dampened the business sentiment in many countries across the world
J&K’s handloom and handicrafts sector employs over four and a half lakh people, mostly as artisans and craftsmen
Junaid Ali, (46), whose family has been in the handicrafts trade for over 120 years, had to halt his shipment of four handmade carpets to Dubai after the joint military strikes by the US and Israel on Iran on February 28, and Iran's retaliatory strikes.
Ali runs a swanky showroom in the Munawarabad area of Srinagar, which is about half a kilometre from the commercial hub, Lal Chowk, where thousands of people had converged to protest the military strikes on Iran.
Ali is passionate about his trade. In his childhood, he used to spend time in the shop after school. Slowly, he picked up the art of selling from his cousins, who are also exporters. He is not convinced that a ceasefire would bring relief to him and other traders and help resume the supplies to West Asia. “The impact will last longer. People in the affected countries would be more concerned about rebuilding the infrastructure that has been damaged. Tourism to the UAE has been affected, and purchasing handicraft items would not be a priority for months,” says Ali.
In their showroom, shelves are lined with all sorts of hand-woven products, and in a corner, carpets with GI tags remain stacked. Some of these are meant to be shipped for exports.
Ali has been exporting kaftans and shawls, besides expensive carpet rugs, but now all he hears from his friends and customers in Dubai is stories of living a hard life in the middle of the war. “I go for business trips to Dubai and rent out an apartment there. I have friends, some of whom have returned from the UAE and some others who are there. They share the horrors of war. How do we sell in these times?” he asks.
For exporters like Ali, West Asia has been a favourite market, with countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman and Qatar having been important trading hubs. Many Kashmiris find employment in these countries, while an array of products that are woven by artisans here, including prayer mats, handkerchiefs, pashmina shawls and carved-wood products are exported to these places.
Before the war, for products like carpet rugs, which sell at around ten to twelve lakh a piece, West Asia was a thriving market. As Kashmir lacks big private companies due to years of militancy and rugged terrain that makes transporting goods an arduous task, locally, horticulture and handicrafts have been the main sources of employment.
J&K’s handloom and handicrafts sector employs over four and a half lakh people, mostly as artisans and craftsmen, some of whom earn only Rs 500-600 a day. However, due to the decline in the trade, over the years, people have given up the main crafts like carpet-weaving since it laborious to sit before the wooden looms and weave the rugs for several days without hope of much returns.
For traders, the impact of the war on Iran was immediate. It was harder for the handicrafts sector, which was already reeling from the hike in tariffs imposed last year by the US and the Ukraine war that led to the decline in demand in the European market. The sector’s exports totaled Rs. 733.59 crore in 2024-25 as it rebounded from the impact of COVID-19, but the figure was 1,116.37 and 1,162.29 core respectively in 2022-23 and 2023-24, and in 2025-26 by October-end, the volume stood at Rs. 410.97 crore.
Mohammad Faisal Shah, 45, says that the ongoing war has badly hit his trade, and even the payments for the orders that were shipped before the attacks have been held up. “The exports to the Gulf countries have been totally affected, and we have not received the payments for the trade orders that were booked earlier. Traditionally, the sale of handicraft products picks up before Ramadhan, and the payments start coming after that. But this time, the payments have been delayed. We are also facing issues with the banks, and the payments that would be credited by the buyers within a day are now taking at least 25 days,” he says.
Shah forayed into the Gulf market three years back, getting initial orders from customers who visited his showrooms in Kashmir. “We were hoping to see some growth after we started doing business in the Gulf market, but the war has completely disrupted the supplies. UAE is a different market; it has been fetching better volumes than the US and other markets,” he says.
In a small shop tucked between a row of hotels and restaurants in the Bishembar Nagar area of Srinagar, Waseem Sultan, 37, counts the losses from the war. Sultan, who runs his family business, says that the export of carved-wood products has not only been hit with regard to West Asia. The crisis has also had a cascading impact on the other territories, affecting his overall exports.
“The West Asia market has completely collapsed," he says. "Through some of our contacts and online, we used to receive the orders, but now deliveries have become impossible as people are fleeing these places. We employ about 20 people directly at our factories, and around 400 others who are associated with us from whom we order the products. Earlier, after the Ukraine war, we saw a decline in trade at our Goa showroom after the Russian currency dropped against the Indian rupee. Now, after this war, we will have to stop getting fresh stocks from artisans,” he adds.
Twenty-six-year-old Aamir Rafiq says that a major part of their business has been to the UAE and Iran, which are seeing “zero trade now.”
The war has also impacted the other markets and lead to the cancellation of trade fairs, due to which the businessmen are staring at long-term losses.
Sheikh Ashiq, who has been in the handicrafts business for the last 25 years, says that war has not only hit exports to the Gulf countries, but also to other parts of the world. “The carriage rates have increased by nearly four times, and our exports to Bahrain, Iraq and the UAE have taken a hit. Overall, the war has dampened the business sentiment in other countries as well. We were already impacted by the Ukraine war, due to which exports to France, Germany and Sweden were hit; and now there is a general recession in trade.”
Musadiq Shah, who runs a marketing office in Dubai for his handicrafts trade, says, “The trade fairs would usually commence in April and are called spring fairs. At these fairs, people place the orders for shipments in advance for the autumn. Since the fairs have been cancelled, there is a visible long-term impact on the trade.”
Javed Ahmad Tenga, President of Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), who is himself a handicrafts exporter, says that West Asia accounts for nearly 50 to 60 per cent of the export market of Kashmir for the sector. He adds that like other businessmen whose shipments were halted, he couldn’t export prayer mats to Saudi Arabia due to the war.
Tenga notes that the war has also increased the freight rates, and they have urged the Central government to extend the tenure for clearance of loan payments. “We have sought the extension in the payment of the pre-shipment and post-shipment limits to deal with the crises,” he says.
Mohammad Yaqoob Bafanda, a small-time handicrafts exporter from Srinagar’s Rainawari area who is also a weaver, says that he has not received orders from the West Asia market after the war.
Ali fears that as the war drags on, it will also hit the employment of artisans from whom they get the stocks. “Over 40 artisans are associated with us and we will have to stop placing orders from them if the situation persists like this,” he says.