TEHRAN - World Crafts Council-Asia Pacific Region Director Ghada Hijavi along with a fellow expert arrived in Shiraz on Tuesday to follow up on their assessment to name the southern Iranian city “a world city of handicrafts”.

The experts also plan to visit various handicraft workshops, stores and exhibits in the city, its ancient and modern arts, and associated bazaars.

They are scheduled to pay visits to the Fars province’s governor-general and the mayor of Shiraz as well, a local cultural official said, IRNA reported.

Hijavi said last year that Shiraz deserves the title as she was visiting handicrafts’ workshops and stores in the city, Fars tourism chief Mosayeb Amiri said earlier this month.

For the time being, over 40 fields of handicrafts are practiced in Shiraz, the official added.

So far, the council has granted the same titles to several Iranian cities and villages including Abadeh for its art of “Woodcarving” and the village of Khorashad for the craft ‘Toebafi’ (traditional handwoven fabrics).

Back in February, the oasis city of Meybod celebrated becoming a world city for Zilou, a traditional type of floor covering commonly woven across the central Iranian city and its outskirts.

Celebrated as the heartland of Persian culture for over 2000 years, Shiraz has become synonymous with education, nightingales, poetry and crafts skills passed down from generation to generation. It was one of the most important cities in the medieval Islamic world and was the Iranian capital during the Zand dynasty (1751–1794).

Iran’s handicrafts exports reached $289 million in the past Iranian calendar year 1397, showing three percent growth year on year, based on data released by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts. Traditional ceramics, pottery vessels, handwoven cloths as well as personal ornamentations with precious and semi-precious gemstones are among Iranian exports to Iraq, Afghanistan and Germany, the U.S., the UK, and other countries

AFM/MG