Bringing Hanoi Handicrafts Afar

Craft villages not only provide employment opportunities and improve the livelihoods of workers, but also contribute to preserving and developing the traditional cultural identity of each locality.

Phu Vinh village, located in Chuong My district, 25km west of Hanoi’s center, is renowned for its intricate bamboo and rattan products

Hanoi is home to 806 craft villages, including 321 certified ones across its districts and towns. As one of the localities with the largest number of craft villages in the country, Hanoi is widely recognized as the production cradle of high-quality handicraft products that are trusted by domestic and international consumers.

Numerous difficulties

One of Hanoi’s existing strengths in cottage industries is the wide distribution of craft villages throughout the city, from districts and towns to villages and wards. This condition enables Hanoi to develop its economy and raise the living standards of people in craft villages, especially villagers and artisans. In fact, traditional craft villages in Hanoi have actively supported restructuring and developing the rural economy, employment, and incomes for workers, while providing a solid foundation for successfully carrying out the One Commune One Product (OCOP) Program and the new rural development program in the capital city.

Craft products are diverse, beautiful, and high-class. Some products are highly competitive in domestic and foreign markets, including bamboo and rattan products, apparel, ceramics, traditionally woven and embroidered products, wooden furniture for consumption and construction, mechanical products, processed agricultural products, and foodstuff (rice cake, vermicelli, candy, spring rolls, sticky rice cake, and tea). Despite having many advantages in developing traditional cottage industries, craft villages in Hanoi currently face a shortage of input materials for production. This reality has become a concern for artisans in craft villages in Hanoi.

According to statistics, the three pottery villages of Bat Trang, Giang Cao, and Kim Lan require approximately 10,000 tons of white clay annually for ceramic production. This raw material is mainly imported from domestic provinces and foreign countries. As for bamboo and rattan materials, Chuong My district alone consumes 1,300 tons of rattan and 500,000 bamboo trees each year.

Artisan Nguyen Van Trung from Phu Vinh rattan and bamboo village (Phu Nghia commune, Chuong My district) stated that currently, the available rattan and bamboo materials in Hanoi can only meet 20% of the demand. Therefore, producers must find growing areas to purchase raw materials and provide technical guidance on growing, processing, and preservation to ensure a stable supply for production. This is a very difficult task. The input scarcity results in high input costs and product costs, causes difficulties for manufacturers and traders.

Currently, two-way information between producers and input suppliers remains weak, leading to undersupply and difficulties for both sides. In addition, most raw materials for handicraft production in Hanoi depend on external suppliers.

Mr. Le Ba Ngoc, General Secretary of the Vietnam Handicraft Exporters Association, said that the input source is increasingly scarce and the input price is growing rapidly, while the export price of handicrafts is unlikely to go up as a result. For example, in the ceramic industry, clay prices have risen by over 90% in the last five years and kaolin prices have also climbed by 75%. Hence, the profitability of ceramic producers has contracted constantly.

Strengthening trade connections

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Dai, Director of the Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, stated that Hanoi is known as a “land of hundreds of industries” and has a very high demand for raw materials. However, as a capital city, it lacks production areas and must import raw materials from other localities. In recent years, some provinces and cities have planned raw material areas but their plans have not been fully realized. Moreover, their plans are individually designed and not interconnected with each other to fully apply regional advantages.

Mr. Nguyen Van Chi, Director of the Hanoi Rural Development Department, said that Hanoi always has a very high demand for raw materials. Therefore, at present, the city focuses on connecting raw material areas with other provinces and cities throughout the country to start production. To deal with difficulties in input supply for craft villages, the government needs to perfect policies on land and material areas. Particularly, it needs to set aside the land fund for building industrial zones and cottage industry clusters to accommodate production facilities relocated out of residential areas to form concentrated production zones. The government needs to support and encourage businesses, cooperatives and individuals to lease land and accumulate land to develop concentrated material areas to serve production. It needs to adjust and reduce land rents for rural producers in industrial zones and concentrated material areas for production. In addition, it should invest in developing concentrated and stable material areas to supply craft villages. It also needs to prioritize the development of key products such as bamboo and rattan, ceramics, apparel and medicinal herbs in localities with suitable natural conditions.

The government supports the public-private partnership (PPP) mechanism to develop material areas, process and trade raw materials for craft villages. It also assists in developing sustainable certified raw materials in line with international standards and adaptive raw materials to minimize climate change impacts. The government encourages enterprises, especially large ones, to invest in building and developing concentrated production chains with farmers from planting, purchasing, preservation, processing and consumption. It increases investment in science and technology for agricultural production and development as well as agricultural product processing.

By Minh Ngoc, Vietnam Business Forum