Once a symbol of cultural prestige, Iran's handmade rugs are no longer selling as fast as they once did, as sanctions weigh on an already troubled economy and buyers' tastes change.

Commanding more than $2 billion in export revenues in its heyday of the early 1990s, the industry now struggles to scrape together around $40 million, marking a dramatic collapse of more than 95 percent.

The reimposition of sanctions in 2018 meant the age-old craft lost what was traditionally its largest market -- the United States.

"In the years when the unkind and cruel US sanctions on the hand-woven carpet sector were imposed... we lost the US, the buyer of more than 70 percent of Iranian hand-woven carpets," Zahra Kamani, head of Iran's National Carpet Centre, told state TV.

In 2017, just before the sanctions were revived, rugs were still considered one of the country's key non-oil exports, with a revenue of more than $400 million.

But Iran's customs organisation said that during the last year of the Persian calendar that ended in March, exports stood at just $41.7 million.

Exports went to 55 countries that year, topped by Germany, the........

© International Business Times