Bilums will be more popular overseas, trade group says

 THE International Trade Centre (ITC) says it is confident that bilum (string bag) weavers in Papua New Guinea can earn more from overseas markets than what they are getting now. 

Senior officer with ITC Women and Trade Programme Torek Farhadi said the art and originality of the designs and styles say much more about the bilums than is realised. 

He said this gave PNG bilum weavers the advantage in selling their products abroad.

The project to commercialise PNG bilums was funded by ITC US$3 million (K6.7 million) Women in Trade programme with additional funding support from the Australian Government.

Farhadi said certain elements of the bilum needed to be improved to meet international demand expectations. “To have bilums, they have to have pockets because when they (users) reach into their bilums 

they want to know where their phones are, where their wallets are,” he said.

“So this is an example of how a design can be adopted so that the product becomes something that the user can use.

“Outside this hotel, bilums are sold at K50/K60.

“It turns out that bilums requires a lot of hard work. And when you interview the women, whether it be natural fibre or imported material you use, the price of the material is almost the price that the bilum sold on the side of the road … plus a very slim profit.

“If you export bilums, we have a chance to fetch at a much higher price.”