Fine Art and Handicraft: Coalition for Common Development

At present, Vietnam’s handicraft industry is facing many difficulties such as the lack of stable material zones, resulting in great proportion in import materials, small production scale leading to failure with big orders which require high quality and quick goods delivery. In addition, products’ designs are still undiversified to meet the demand of the international markets. Most of enterprises manufacture products in accordance with the designs and technical requirements of foreign importers, not to affirm their own brand names.

Many products introduced to clients have not met consumers’ taste due to their unpractical features in daily life. Businesses are still passive in surveying the market’s demand and taste, seeking trade partners and building a long-term and stable trade relation. The representative of a fine arts bamboo and rattan wares producer shared experience that businesses should find out the favourable products on the market when foreign customers’ taste is increasing. For example, the U.S. market demands for products with colour and shape differing from those of European markets and Japan. Companies should have particular designs to satisfy foreign demanding customers to better participate in each market. When attending foreign fairs, companies are suggested to introduce product designs in accordance with the trends of each year, each region and market to foreign clients.

 

Over the past time, Can Tho City has manufactured and developed of patterned wooden pictures and plain wooden pictures, typical fine arts and handicraft products. One of the advantages of this kind of product is the ability to use normal wood patterns with vein and colour such as breadfruit and dipper to form wooden pictures. Currently, this kind of products are made mainly by householders and displayed at picture and gift shops in the city, and bought by overseas Vietnamese, domestic and foreign tourists. The consuming volume of plain wooden pictures is often increasing at the year-end and then sharply decreasing in other months. However, producers of wooden pictures have to maintain their operation to keep workers, prepare materials and goods for other months. However, Can Tho City is now home to householders producing wooden pictures with small scale. Recently, some units attending handicraft fairs, exhibitions and product display programmes have collected much information about the market, customers’ taste and demand, which will help them renovate product designs, and signed many contracts and big orders. Moreover, the development of wooden pictures makers will help solve unemployment, raise income for local people. It will also boost the recovery of handicraft villages, in combination with the development of tourism, which are expected to luring more and more visitors to Can Tho City.

 

With available domestic materials and proportion of imported materials accounting for 3 - 5 per cent of product’s intrinsic value, the proper value of export handicrafts is between 95 per cent and 97 per cent. Besides, handicrafts are not restricted by quota in export, and imported by the U.S., Japan, European Union markets with large volume. However, the unstable material source is imposing difficulty in production for enterprises. The production in the season of rare materials will break product quality and raise price. The owner of a handicraft firm in Tien Giang Province said that in the period of sharp export, Chinese companies have bought materials from Vietnam, leading to the increase in material price. This firm desires to have a stable material zone to ensure input for the production, improve the handicraft competitiveness capacity on the market. Many other enterprises, due to inefficiency in establishing trade relations, have just sold products within the country, not exporting to other countries. According to economic experts, handicraft companies should set up a coalition to exchange information, production experience with one another, in order to better penetrate into the market and jointly improve the competitiveness of products. On the other hands, handicraft makers should pay great attention to innovating product designs which are suitable and useful in modern life, highlighting the nation’s culture features. Products must have reasonable price with low delivery cost, beautiful wrapping and labels to satisfy the market and customers demands.