PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- When Afghan refugees began going home in droves, the first off the mark were carpet weavers.

With them went the hopes this Pakistani border city had of becoming a center for exotic carpets.

The Chamkani carpet town was established here earlier this year to entice Afghans to help boost a $250 million carpet industry in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

But the 1,200 skilled weavers the Pakistani authorities were hoping would turn Chamkani into a vibrant showcase of Central Asian rugs took advantage of a un-backed repatriation program and left in March, AFP reported.

At the dusty and narrow Dalzah street here, a small Afghan carpet factory appears to be in production, but the guards outside the walled premises are reluctant to talk.

"The owner has gone to Kabul," says one guard as he goes inside to call others. There appear to be few people working inside. "We can't say anything about the future until he returns."

Located at the far end of a dirt track and in the middle of neglected corn fields, Chamkani is now a ghost town.

At the entrance to the vast complex is an elderly Pakistani guard, Nasrulla, who counts the occasional pickup truck removing bricks from abandoned houses and carpet factories which never took off.

Since the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) initiated voluntary repatriation of refugees in March, some 1.3 million Afghans have returned home.

Craftsmen from the northern Afghan provinces of Balk, Samangan, Baglan, Badakshan, Kunduz and Faryab, known for exquisite carpets, have gone, taking back with them the mastery that Peshawar was counting on.

The NWFP of which Peshawar is the capital has seen its refugee population shrink by nearly two thirds since March. And more are leaving daily taking a UNHCR package worth about $130 to resettle in Afghanistan.

Peshawar's carpet trade is going through a turbulent period.

supply has dropped. Buyers are vanishing even faster. At the upmarket "Afghan carpet" showroom, manager Ikram Khan puts on a brave front. "We have no problems (with supplies) because we import carpets from Kabul. We have our people there."