Sirogojno exported 10,000 hand-knitted sweaters

In 2010, about 10,000 hand-knitted sweaters worth EUR 700,000 were exported from Sirogojno, a village on Zlatibor mountain that is famous in the world of fashion for handmade wool clothing, Director of Sirogojno company Rade Ljubojevic told Tanjug.

He claims that the production is in a serious crisis, which is confirmed by the fact that this year's export to European countries, Japan, USA and Canada was ten times smaller than in the 1980's and 1990's.

- For about 700 knitters, wool clothing making is an additional occupation and nobody has been able to solve the problem of their status in the labor market over the last twenty years or so - Ljubojevic complains.

As Ljubojevic explains, Sirogojno company must pay all taxes and allowances for hiring knitters who do the knitting as a side job so that many of them lose the right to pension because of having that additional occupation.