Dubai: The Carpet and Art Oasis is back beginning Thursday, with 20 per cent more participants.

The Carpet and Art Oasis 2015, organised by the Dubai Customs, will open its doors to the public at 10am coinciding with the start of the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) 2015, of which it is one of the main attractions.

The Oasis’ official inauguration will take place on January 6. Officials from Dubai Customs and the Dubai Festivals and Retail Establishment, an agency of the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing and organisers of DSF, will be present.

Themed ‘20 Years of Spinning Art’, the 20th edition of the Oasis will feature a multitude of rare carpets brought from the world’s most famous carpet manufacturing countries.

Carpets form a very important part of the lives of people in the Middle East, where carpet-weaving is a deeply embedded tradition of the past.

Abdul Rahman Eisa, Chairman of the Carpet Oasis’ Organising Committee, said a total of 300 carpets have been weaved to be displayed exclusively and for the first time at the Carpet & Art Oasis 2015.

They will be featured over an area of 6,200 square metre exhibition hall at Dubai Festival City, the Carpet and Art Oasis’ home since 1996.

Since its inauguration 19 years ago, the number of visitors flocking to the Carpet Oasis has reached over one million, with total sales of more than Dh1.7 billion.

More than two million carpets have been exhibited thus far, handcrafted in renowned rug-making regions in Iran like Qom, Esfahan, Kashan, Tabriz and Naeen, alongside the exotic cashmere carpets and other art items on display by exhibitors from Turkey, India, China, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.

The Carpet Oasis will be open for visitors Saturdays to Thursdays from 10am to 10pm and Fridays from 4pm to 11pm until February 1.