Craft Villages Get Assistance

Vietnam now has around 2,000 craft villages, generating jobs for millions of workers and exporting products to many foreign countries. According to the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency, by 2010 Vietnamese handicrafts will earn US$1.5 million in export turnover. This is a significant figure, resulting from close co-operation between enterprises and craft villages in recent years.

 

The Vietnam Fine Art Export and Import Company (Artexpo), one of the five largest handicraft export companies in Vietnam, has become the first enterprise to express interest in a traditional pottery village.

 

Under the centrally-planned economy, before the 1990s, the pottery village of Bat Trang made some products to meet local demand and to sell in nearby localities. “We have provided financial and technical support to help local people produce new products with new samples to meet the demand of foreign customers,” said Nguyen Ban Binh, general director of Artexpo, which earned US$12 million in export turnover in 2006.

 

The Hanoi Trade Corporation (Hapro), a leading export enterprise under the management of the Ministry of Trade, has also developed plans to support the development of craft villages. Hapro has helped the Ha Tay-based Ngoc Son Export and Import Company develop from a small establishment into a strong enterprise, specialising in manufacturing and trading handicrafts for export. The company now has around 20 establishments acting as suppliers. The company’s annual revenues are put at US$1 million. It has generated jobs for around 500 local people.

 

Hapro has developed a strategy restoring Chu Dau pottery village in Nam Sach district, Hai Duong province, which is around 300 years old. So far, the name of Chu Dau craft village has been combined with the Hapro brand. Having made efforts for six years to search the homeland for Vietnamese pottery craft, Hapro has restored many precious glazes and clay, which have made Chu Dau pottery products famous for years. Thanks to Hapro’s efforts, Chu Dau now has restored its traditional craft with 300 workers and artisans.

 

Having committed to the development of craft villages, enterprises have made significant contributions to improving craft villages by mobilising local people, organisations and associations to raise the capability of households to meet the demand of big export orders. Also, training courses have been organised along with enterprises’ commitments to recruit those who graduate from the courses. This has encouraged workers to make a long term commitment to their jobs.

 

Many concerns and difficulties remain due to the fact that awareness and thinking of workers in craft villages cannot be changed in a day. There are still lots of goods which fail to meet delivery time and quality requirements, resulting in bad reputation for Vietnamese enterprises.

 

Vietnamese villages have been famous for thousands of years for bamboo. However, 715 bamboo and rattan article making villages with 500,000 workers are facing material shortage as bamboo supplies have gradually been exhausted. From the sustainable development point of view, it is a great concern, as the time for rattan to grow is very long, around 20 years, and currently Vietnam relies on exploiting natural materials.

 

Another difficulty is poor preservation and production technology, resulting products getting mouldy when they are exported to countries with climatic conditions different from Vietnam. Also, the poor quality of products due to the short time allowed for product perfection has impacted the prestige of enterprises and Vietnamese brands. Unfair competition by lowering prices also caused poor product quality.

 

Co-operation between enterprises and craft villages is necessary to boost exports. However, efforts from authorised agencies and sustainable solutions are needed.