Handicraft industry must compete

Workers are drying water-hyacinth products in Hoa Thanh Long An Limited Company.

     Le Ba Ngoc, general secretary of the Viet Nam Handicraft Exporters Association, said that poor competitiveness rather than the export market was the bottleneck hindering the industry. Ngoc said that the Vietnamese handicraft industry mainly produced low value products in large quantities for retail giants like Ikea, Wal Mart and Peer 1 Import. Around 90 per cent of Vietnamese handicraft products were produced following ordered designs and exported under brands of the buyers, according to Ngoc. He said Viet Nam remained struggling in building its strength in the handicraft market.

     A representative from a handicraft exporting firm said that poor designs together with less competitive prices were undermining competitiveness. Developing a firm brand in the global market was still a long way off for the local handicraft industry.

     Setsuko Okura, a handicraft and gift exporter from Japan, was quoted by enternews.vn as saying that handicraft products of Viet Nam were diversified with great potential for exports. She said that consumption of Vietnamese handicraft products in Japan remained modest as they were considered inappropriate for Japanese consumers who preferred smartly designed products. She used Vietnamese handicraft producers to be active in studying consumer tastes of each markets to develop products with competitiveness.

     Experts also pointed out that the small-scale production failed to ensure the uniformity of handicraft products, adding that the link between trade villages and exporters must be enhanced.

     Vu Cam Tu, director of An Do Ceramics Company, said that the development of a production chain in the handicraft industry was important to create products with originality and creativity matching consumer tastes.

     The association estimated that the handicraft exports reached a revenue of US$1.9 billion last year, up from $1.6 billion in 2014.

VNS - February, 24/2016