Tra Vinh Province crafts solutions for artisan villages

The Tra Vinh Department of Industry and Trade will implement many solutions to help handicraft villages expand production and markets

Data from the Tra Vinh Department of Industry and Trade showed that Tra Vinh now has 13 traditional craft villages with about 2,065 production establishments and industrial production value of VND600 billion, contributing around 5.6 percent of the province’s total industrial production value.

The handicraft sector has also created and promoted local products featuring traditional identity and values such as carpets made of jute, products made from coconuts, bamboo knitting needle sets, and pictures with delicate patterns from rice and Buon leaves.

However, the department also said the local handicraft sector is still facing difficulties in production and business. For example, production costs are still higher compared to those of other localities. Products patterns lack special identities and have not exploited the local historical and culture values to make them unique. In addition, production facilities, especially those in the foodstuff field often pay little attention to food safety regulations.

The craft villages are mainly small and fragmented operations, making it difficult for them to access capital from commercial banks.

To solve this problem, the Tra Vinh Department of Industry and Trade has organized trade promotion activities and training courses on how to run a start-up, build brands and acquire food safety knowledge to do business more effectively and create customer trust.

It will also launch a website to promote local handicraft products. In the short term, the province will provide funding to maintain the website and the craft villages will have to manage the operation of the website in the long term.

With capital support from industry promotion programs, the Tra Vinh Department of Industry and Trade plans to help production establishments acquire new modern equipment to improve production capacity, save labor costs and create high quality products to serve consumer demand. It also plans to encourage enterprises’ investment in pattern design to add more values to their products.

It will also call for small-scale production facilities to increase cohesion and form cooperatives to improve their supply capabilities for large orders. This will also enable handicraft producers easier access to bank loans.