Pashmina Patent Launch at Home also Soon

Nepali pashmina went commercial in 1990 but the local market still awaits for its trademark even after 19 years.

However, Nepal Pashmina Industries Association (NPIA) has been successful in registering Nepali pashmina as Chyangra pashmina in Australia, Norway and Japan. According to NPIA president Shanker Prasad Pandey, within a month NPIA will launch its trademark in the local market too and it will be available for the members of NPIA.

Customers in the local market get confused due to the puzzlingly cheap price of pashmina.

Hence NPIA is poised to launching its trademark here soon to guarantee product quality both at the national and international levels.

NPIA has applied for its brand registration in the Euro- pean Union, Switzerland, and China too.

Amongst various countries where the association applied for brand registration, Australia, Norway and Japan have sent confirmation letters while confirmation from Korea and America is expected to arrive any day, said Pandey.

Due to the lack of Nepali pashmina's own brand, differ- ent countries are misusing the name of Nepali pashmina to sell products made of viscous polyester, wool, cotton and other materials.

Once the brand Chyangra Pashmina gets registered worldwide export of fake pash- mina will be controlled. The shawl-sized fake pashmina products, that are sold with the tag `pashmina' are actually non-pashmina. Prices range from Rs 200-300 for viscous polyester, Rs 500-600 for wool, Rs 1,200-1,300 for silk and wool mixed and Rs 3000 for silk and a little pashmina mixed, said NPIA.

" Nepali pashmina has a history of more than 100 years and it was 1990 when it was commercially launched. It is now high time that we got the trademark launched in the domestic market too so as to facilitate people looking for genuine pashmina products," said Pandey.

In the early days, pashmina products were exported as gift items to China. NPIA is doing the legwork as regards developing hologram, serial code and printing logos for the pashmina trademark.

After great endeavor NPIA got an agreement signed with Trade and Export Promotion Centre (TEPC) regarding the mechanism to get loan from TEPC for the brand promotion of Nepali pashmina abroad.

Under the agreement, TEPC will grant loan to NPIA on a three-installment basis -- Rs 10 lakh, Rs 8 lakh and Rs 3 lakh.

The first instalment has been released to NPIA. TEPC has made a total fund allocation of Rs 25 lakh for the brand promotion of Nepali pashmina.