Vietnam Artificial Flowers: Seeking Export Markets

Vietnam Artificial Flowers: Seeking Export Markets 

In Vietnam now, locally made artificial flowers are competing with imported items.  Artificial flowers are in high demand in both local and export markets but Vietnam's artisans and enterprises are getting confused because they lack promotions for this hand-made product.

Artificial flowers are becoming more and more beloved by consumers, but the makers are coming across numerous difficulties because they are relying on manually made methods. Local costly artificial flowers are out-stripped by imported ones with lower prices. What’s more, a unit with 7-10 workers are only able to turn out 15-20 flowers a day.

With such a production situation, it is difficult to produce a large volume with low costs in the short term. Furthermore, makers and customers are in parallel: makers don’t know where the customers are and vice versa. According to artisan Nguyen Ba Muu, director of a Vietnam-Japan dry flower enterprise, the best way to assist craftsmen and maintain and develop the traditional profession is to show them consumer markets.

To avoid the disappearance of a traditional handicraft, it is necessary to put scientific and technological applications into production, firstly to retake the local market and then to enter the rest of the world. Mrs Trinh Thuc Bang, a dry flower artisan, said the technological applications to artificial flower production are self-taught. That is why different units turn out different products. As a result, training needs proper concerns and needs special assistance from the government.

In Vietnam, artificial flowers are traded in Ham Long Street, Cha Ca Street, and Hang Ruoi Street where customers can see various kinds of hand-made flowers from common rose, pansies, carnation, dahlia and forget-me-nots to large bunches and baskets. These lifelike flowers are made from silk.

Presently, Vietnamese-made artificial flowers are competing badly with imported products. With lower prices, imported artificial flowers, especially from China, are attracting local customers. With a few thousand Vietnamese dong, a customer can buy a bunch. Thai products are better but are retailed at 4-5 times higher than the Chinese-made. However, according to dealers, Vietnamese-made products are still selling well thanks to their high quality and unique style such as the yellow chrysanthemum, which isn’t manufactured in foreign countries. Not only being a favourite in Vietnam, artificial flowers have been exported to the US, Japan, Taiwan and others. This handicraft will further develop if it has more professionalized investment in terms of production and consumption.

• Thi Van