The Hindu Business Line : Coir Board chief calls for boosting exports to Chile

Kochi, March 22 The Coir Board Chairman, Mr V.S. Vijayarghavan, has called upon the South American country of Chile to explore the possibility of using the eco-friendly coir geo-textiles, an effective economic substitute to synthetic geo-textiles, for protecting the embankments in its extensive mining fields.

This could help enhance the export of coir products, especially in the context of the international year of natural fibre, declared by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Geneva recently, he said at a media conference in the Chilean capital of Santiago, the venue of a four-day ‘India show-2009’ which began on Wednesday.

‘Proven effectiveness’

Explaining that the member countries of the International Erosion Control Association (IECA) had also evinced keen interest in substituting synthetic geo-textiles with coir geo-textiles because of its bio-degradable properties, at the recent IECA annual conference held at Reno Nivada in the US, the Coir Board Chairman pointed out that extensive laboratory tests conducted at the Coir Research Institute in India had proved its effectiveness in erosion control measures and several countries had begun experimenting on this eco-friendly product.

He also dealt at length on the use of coir ply and coir composite board, a substitute for wood, besides coir handicrafts and coir jewellery made out of natural fibre, which was on high demand in the export market.

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