The International Trade Center, with the support of the European Union, helps small businesses and artisans from five Central Asian countries to sell their products through the NOVICA e-commerce marketplace. The digital marketplace will provide craftsmen from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan with access to new sales channels aimed at international customers.

The website, founded in 1999 in Los Angeles, allows artisans to sell their handmade goods to customers around the world. NOVICA's partners are UNICEF, the International Trade Center, USAID, and various American NGOs.

One of NOVICA's latest projects was the Silk Road Artisan Empowerment Hub and the Artisans Connect online store in Central Asia. The program is aimed at supporting small businesses engaged in the online sale of handmade goods within the framework of the Ready4Trade Central Asia project, which is implemented by the International Trade Center with the financial support of the European Union.

The Center for the Empowerment of Artisans will select 40 craftsmen from the Ready4Trade project, register them on NOVICA's online channels and deal with all aspects of the demonstration, sale, packaging and express delivery of their goods. It also provides access to the NOVICA store and other platforms that are not available to artisans privately. We are talking about NOVICA outlets on Amazon, Overstock and Wayfair.

The Artisans Connect e–commerce store presents products from artisans and companies that have been trained in e-commerce skills and individual trainings as part of a four-year project - for example, 50 craftsmen and entrepreneurs in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan received support to adapt to the e-commerce systems of these countries.

According to experts, the global crafts sector has huge potential - in 2022, the market volume was 752.2 billion dollars. The volume of sales through online channels in Central Asia exceeded $ 2.5 million.

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