Gabbeh over time
Hamid Zolanvari (son of Haj Gholamreza Zolanvari, father of Gabbeh in the world) is a member of the board of directors of the Iranian Handmade Carpet Union and president of the Fars Handmade Carpet Exporters Association, the third generation of families They are built for Persian carpets and rugs.
In this interview, while expressing the internal and external challenges facing the carpet and gabbeh business, he considers the economic activists in this field as rent-free entrepreneurs, whose generation is in danger of extinction for the reasons that you will read below.
Zolanvari brand is a well-known brand in the domestic market of Iran and the world of Gabbeh and carpet, and your father Haj Gholamreza Zolanvari is known as the father of Gabbeh Jahan. How did you get this brand and position?
If you look at the history of some of the most famous and prominent brands in the world, you will see that these brands have been created and continued in a family for several generations. The Gabbeh and carpet business in our family started two generations ago and now the third generation of Zolanvarians continue to do so. My grandfather, Haj Mashaleh Zolanvari, was the first person to start this business in our family. In Shiraz, he had a room in Haji Bazaar and traded. Of course, at that time, the bazaars were not like the present bazaars, which were separated, and my grandfather’s room was not just a carpet shop. In his room, in addition to rugs and carpets and all kinds of hand-woven fabrics, cotton, wool, yarn and other necessities and raw materials for this work were also bought and sold. My father, Haj Gholamreza Zolanvari, who was the eldest son of Haj Mashaaleh, entered his father’s business at the age of fifteen and worked and gained experience with him for several years, until after starting his own business, he started his own independent business. The prosperity of the father’s work actually begins in the post-World War II period. After the Second World War, Europe entered the phase of rebuilding the ruins of the war and economic development, and along with many items that are needed, the demand for carpets in Europe increased sharply. At that time, Iran was one of the world’s largest producers of handmade carpets. Naturally, a large part of this demand is transferred to the Iranian carpet market. In this way, the movement of large carpet traders to different cities to meet this demand will increase. My father – Haj Gholamreza Zolanvari – at that time, due to the small amount of money they had, they used to buy carpets from the villagers, and part of the products they bought were the same fabrics that were woven with old designs. Haj Gholamreza offered these carpets in commercial circles where carpet merchants were present. In one of these meetings, he met one of the merchants, and the businessman, who had a hand in the export fire and was aware of the boom in the export market, asked him to buy more carpets. In those years, the center of the world carpet market was in London. Haj Gholamreza, with the help of that merchant, started to export carpets, buying carpets mainly from villagers and nomads, packing them and putting them in sacks. Arrived in London and carpeted the sacks so that the moisture would not damage the carpets along the way. In this way, several shipments of carpets are sent to London, and in these shipments, there were a number of gabbehs;
After a while, a businessman who worked with them in London sends a message that no matter how much you get from this type of product, from one board to 10,000 boards, we are buyers, and we pay capital as an advance to develop the work. Since then, Haj Gholamreza has been focusing more on Gabbeh’s business and gradually improving the value chain of this product. Gradually, during the second Pahlavi era, Iran moved towards economic growth due to rising oil prices and other issues, and foreigners – whether as tourists, employees, consultants, advisers, etc. – opened their feet to our country, and the presence of foreigners to The Gabbeh and carpet market is becoming more and more prosperous, because foreigners who came to Iran were often interested in buying these products. In this way, Gabbeh’s demand in the domestic market increases so much that its export is almost stopped. These conditions establish the position of Bandeh Bandeh as the main supplier of Gabbeh in the domestic market, and in fact, the Gabbeh Zolanvari brand has been consolidated in the country during these years. After the revolution, the number of tourists and foreigners working in Iran decreased sharply and the Gabbeh and carpet markets stagnated. To cope with this recession, the father decides to pursue the export of these products more seriously. To achieve this goal, in 1980, our Swiss office was set up by my brother Reza Zolanwari in Zurich, which is still operating today. In addition to the Swiss office, our company has offices in Germany, the United States, Japan and South Africa, and in the post-revolutionary years we had a large presence in exhibitions and events related to textiles and textiles, which significantly helped to establish and promote the Zolanvari brand, especially Has done abroad.
We also received titles, awards, and approvals from festivals, exhibitions, and events on carpets and textiles, including the following: Winning the Gold Medal of the German Demotex Exhibition in 1994 for high sales and customer-centric Zolanvari carpet products, statues and Innovation Award from the exhibition Atlanta USA in 2002, the statuette of the exporter of the national sample of Iran in 1380 and 1385, received the award of Iran Carpet Festival in 1383, the title of the best nomadic carpet producer in 1995 and 2000 from the Austrian exhibition, won the award for best design, creativity and sample producer Nomadic carpets in 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2014 from the German Demotex exhibition, winner of the best nomadic carpet from the 7th Iranian Top Carpet Festival, sample exporter of Fars province in 1389, 1391, 1392, 1393 and 1394, won the statue of the best exporter And the producer of Iranian handicrafts in 1393 and finally gaining the title of the father of Gabbeh Jahan due to a lifetime of effort to offer high quality and new goods by the jury of the German Demotex exhibition in 2013. Eri was founded more than a century ago and continued by my father, now it has led to the creation of the Zolanvari carpet and rug brand, which my brother and I, as the third generation of the Zolanvari family, have a heavy and at the same time valuable task of maintaining and promoting. We are responsible for the global brand.
In your speech, it was mentioned that your father – Haj Gholamreza Zolanvari – has taken steps to upgrade Gabbeh’s production chain. What are these measures?
What he has done to promote the Gabbeh value chain is perhaps unique in the history of Iranian business, if not unique. As I said, when Gabbeh’s demand increases, first in Europe and then at home with the arrival of foreigners in Iran, they conclude that this demand is an exceptional opportunity to boost the production chain. Based on their knowledge of Gabbeh, they conclude that the quality and size of this product should be closer to what is more acceptable in the global market. The first change they make is the change of colors used in Gabbeh from chemical to natural. At that time, nomads and villagers were weaving wool dyed with chemical dyes. These chemical dyes were called ink dyes. With their knowledge of Gabbeh, they knew that if natural color is used in Gabbeh texture, this product will find better beauty and quality. At that time, there was only one workshop in Shiraz that used plant dyes in the dyeing of Gabbeh raw materials, which worked in a very limited way with a pot. The father orders this workshop to work in bulk with plant paint and the number of pots in this workshop reaches 35 in pots and then the number of these workshops gradually increases. In this way, the process of dyeing Gabbeh raw materials returns from chemical to plant. Another change that the father makes in the Gabbeh production chain is the return from machine wool to accessible wool. In other words, the father tells the nomads that it is better to use accessible wool instead of wool processed by textile machines for Gabbeh weaving, and with this change, the quality and durability of Gabbeh will be increased again. Another important change that the father makes in the production chain of this product is the change of Gabbeh size. Gabbeh was actually a product that nomads and villagers wove for themselves, and the sizes they used were no more than two and a half meters. These small sizes made Gabbea less attractive to Europeans. To change the size of the gabbeh, the father ordered gabbehs of different sizes and more marketable, and paid for it in advance as an incentive for the weavers. In this way, the weavers wove gabbehs in various sizes and preferred by the market. If we want to examine these things now, we can call it the revival of the Gabbeh economy and production chain. With these measures, not only did the quality of the product and its coordination with the needs of the market increase and its market became more prosperous, but also the production of Gabbeh supplies and raw materials flourished. The production of plant dyes that were in danger of being destroyed in contrast to chemical dyes was revived. Outdated wool production, which had become obsolete, was revived, and wool production was largely revived. Because the situation of wool demand before the father’s actions was such that the production and processing of wool was not very profitable and even sheep owners discarded the wool, but now the price of available wool is equal to the price of meat. This was a boom in the production and trade of wool, and this trade was so strengthened that many merchants began to trade this product, and even the scope of this boom was extended to other countries.
What is the current situation of Gabbeh production and market inside and outside Iran?
Unfortunately, I must say that the situation of Gabbeh production and market and even handmade carpets, which have a wider market than Gabbeh, is not very favorable. Both producers and traders of these products are struggling with many problems. The main problem is that we do not have consistent decision-making in the government. It seems that our public sector has no worries about carpets and friends in the government do not care that once 10 million people of the country directly and indirectly made a living from carpets and today this number has reached two million people.
Carpet exports, once more than $ 1 billion, have now reached $ 400 million. Almost every morning when we wake up, we are waiting for new decisions, which are often not expert decisions and cause problems for the business. The last problem that the government has created for the Gabbeh and carpet business is the regulations requiring the return of currency for export items. Such rules and decisions stem from the fact that the friends who make these decisions have no knowledge of the process of carpet production and trade. For example, friends seem to think that if the carpet is sent abroad, the export is realized, while many shipments of merchants to Europe are simply transferred from their warehouse in Iran to another warehouse in Europe, and when they send the goods abroad, it does not mean that That product has been sold. Another example is that until recently we were involved in the issue of exchange rate differences tax and we solved this issue with a year of running. Another issue we are dealing with is that the Iranian carpet that was exported, when you return it to the country, if you do not have complete documents, you have to pay import tax. I may send the carpet to Europe but I can not sell the carpet there but I realize that I can sell the same carpet in Japan. Naturally, the carpets must be returned to Iran for service and then re-exported to Japan. What tax should I pay for this round trip ?! At one time they gave export incentives, this carpet could be misused. The carpet will go out and come back and have received export awards, but no export award has been paid for the carpet since 1987. Consider the 2% and 3% export bonus that has not been paid for years. Then we are faced with the decision that we must pay an import tax of 30 to 35% to return the carpet to the country. It is clear that these decisions are made without the support of experts and it hurts the production and trade of this product.
Do you think that more sanctions on Iranian carpets and rugs have harmed us or domestic issues?
The impact of sanctions, as well as the growth of competitors, can not be denied, but when we look at the set of factors, we conclude that much of the entrepreneurial problem lies in our own domestic policies. In Gabbeh, we used to be the first in the world, but the competitors grew with the help of their governments’ protectionist policies, and we descended in the shadow of the government’s negligence. Gabbeh Iran has been exported to the world market for 70 years and maybe even more, but it has just been registered globally this year. Due to this negligence, other countries such as India, Turkey, Pakistan and China and many other countries copied our plans and became our great competitors. The country’s foreign exchange, tax and banking policies have always disrupted private sector programs in the Gabbeh and carpet business. The government’s grief in recent decades has been to support industries that do not have deep roots in this land and water and do not contribute much to entrepreneurship and job creation. I have no objection to the automotive industry or the petrochemical industry or the steel industry, but you see how these industries are treated and how carpets are treated. If automakers export cars to regional markets, they are honking their horns and expecting so much support, so are petrochemicals and steelers, as well as others you know better than me, but the Gabbeh and carpet entrepreneurs are in this mess. They have abandoned themselves. Of course, I wish they were left alone! Policies are such that new obstacles are created for us every day. My question is why the trustees do not value the production and export of Gabbeh and carpet? If you look at our country’s exports, most of it, ie more than 60% of it, is oil and oil and gas derivatives such as petrochemicals and gas condensates, all of which, in addition to being crude and have little added value, also have some kind of rent. Another part of our exports is minerals such as iron ore, which also has little added value. Part of it is agricultural exports, which unfortunately we can not be proud of, because we export products that are water-intensive, while Iran is in a crisis due to water shortages. In fact, most of our production and exports now use cheap energy rents and cheap water. In contrast, policies are designed to keep rooted production and exports, such as carpets and rugs, which have no rents, unprotected and under pressure. We have not had any incentives for exports for many years, but we have export restraint laws such as the same law for returning export currency in 6 months or import tax to Mashaleh. The support and insurance for the carpet and gabbeh producer is so weak that the new generation has turned away from it. A weaver has no support because he is not insured. The number of insured people in this profession in our country is very small and they are falling every day with the new laws. Each meter of carpet and rug that is produced and exported provides a family with a monthly income and creates employment for the rural sector. The production chain of these products is also completely domestic. If this employment is closed, our Farshbaf villagers and Gabbehb tribes will migrate to the city, and in addition to losing its added value in the carpet and Gabbeh business, the government will have to spend more money and entrepreneurship for this person in the city. The social ills of this migration must also be controlled, the costs of which are skyrocketing. In many provinces of the country, especially in Fars province, weavers are all women. These women carry out their own production in their homes while protecting the privacy of their families. Carpet employment chain for women to be closed What do you want to provide for these women so that their families are not harmed by their absence from home? How much should you invest to provide jobs for these women? How to eliminate the poverty that afflicts the families of these women if the carpet production and trade cycle is closed? The generation of carpet and Gabbeh business entrepreneurs should rightly be considered the endangered generation of non-rent entrepreneurs in Iran. This generation produces and exports goods that are indigenous and rooted in the culture and history of this country, goods that, like most of our export goods, do not benefit from cheap energy rents and cheap water. A product whose production does not harm the environment. A commodity that is not a raw material and its value added and employment are significant. On the one hand, this generation is struggling with destructive domestic policies, that is, a set of anti-production and trade laws and approaches, and on the other hand, it has to deal with increasingly foreign issues and problems, such as sanctions and competitors, which are gaining more and more power. Most markets are attacking us, face to face. If the approaches and policies of the country in the field of carpets and rugs are what they are now, I must say that unfortunately this generation will definitely become extinct.
Tell us about Iran’s competitors in the global carpet and carpet market. What have they done over the years?
In a nutshell, our competitors have done the best we can! India exported $ 1.9 billion worth of carpets last year. Pakistan and Afghanistan are also jumping in this market. Turkey plans to export $ 1 billion worth of carpets in 2018. The global market for carpets and rugs that has not grown and that they can not export rugs and rugs to Mars! So these countries want to take our market share. Turkey provides export incentives to its exporters, and India bears the costs of participating in its exporters’ exhibitions. Add cheap facilities to these sponsorships. What support do we have against us? At one time, 350 Iranian companies had offices in Hamburg and sold carpets. Today, these companies have reached less than 30 companies, half of which do not work on Iranian carpets at all.