For the first time in Tajikistan, local clothing companies shared their knowledge and experience on operational mode of sewing for neighboring companies without fear of losing their unique strategies to potential competitors – something you rarely may see in the world of business, says the International Trade Center (ITC) Office in Tajikistan.

A series of awareness-raising workshops on new tailoring methods concluded in Khujand yesterday.

Earlier, similar workshops were held in Dushanbe and Bokhtar. Workshops were hosted by “TojTex LLC” in Dushanbe, “Giavoni LLC” in Khujand, and “KOTA Global LLC” in Bokhtar.

The Union of Private Sector Development of Tajikistan (UPSDT) with support from the International Trade Centre’s Global Textiles and Clothing Program (GTEX) organized the workshops. The workshops aimed to familiarize managers and specialists of the GTEX beneficiary companies with the best practices and know-how on the operational methods for sewing clothes based on their local experiences and knowledge.

In total, more than 80 trainees, managers and specialists from UPSDT member clothing companies, most of them women, learned about model and pattern creation, material cutting and operational sewing of clothes at the workshops. Sessions were delivered by experts from hosting clothing factories. These experts were earlier trained by ITC to further disseminate the information they learned with their colleagues.

Abdullo Muhammadiyev, Head of the Textile and Clothing Enterprises Department at the UPSDT, says: “Our goal is to share the know-how that can benefit most of Tajik clothing companies. We believe that peer-to-peer approach and providing education to employees of the Tajik clothing industry can raise the quality of products of the national apparel sector, and consequently, increase the export from our country. In addition, this activity will also encourage companies to boost the quality of their products to ensure better competitiveness in the market”.

In addition to theoretical sessions, the trainees sat behind sewing machines in host companies and mastered their tailoring talent in practice.

Melikoy Kholova, tailor and a group forewoman at “Vahdat LLC”, a clothing factory from Yovon district, says: “The training was extremely useful to improve the knowledge and professional capacity on new tailoring methods. We will further pass the information we gained to our colleagues in our companies”.

The Private Sector Development Union of Tajikistan, in partnership with relevant ministries and departments, as well as the development partners, provides efforts to contribute to the country’s textile and clothing industry.