The sum will be channeled into vocational training, infrastructure building and the formation of cooperatives, while supporting production, environmental treatment and related tourism development.

Visitors admire the pottery products at Bau Truc village.

Ninh Thuan also plans to design technical demos, a website for craft villages, and assist craft facilities in attending exhibitions and trade fairs.

To date, the province has three recognized traditional craft villages – Bau Truc for pottery, and My Nghiep and Chung My for brocade weaving – in addition to dozens of others working in seafood processing, as well as producing fish sauce, woodwork products, and grape wine, among others. They have so far created thousands of jobs and contributed to the preservation of the culture of the ethnic communities in the locality.

However, many of them have been struggling to survive due to capital and human resources shortage, as well as poor competitiveness.

Amid such context, some are seeking their ways to boost production quality and spur demand from the market.

Bau Truc is recognized as traditional craft villages.

According to Ham Minh Thieu, head of the Cham My Nghiep brocade services and production cooperative, Cham ethnic people are working to improve their brocade product designs and diversity to meet consumers’ demand but still conserve their cultural identity.

The Bau Truc pottery village has followed suit by developing a modern line of pottery products serving the domestic market and export.

By 2020, Ninh Thuan aims to have four to five more accredited craft villages, including aquatic processing one in My Tan and a fish sauce village in Ca Na commune.

Young architect promotes traditional carpentry craft

As a villager in Chang Son in the outskirt district of Thach That in Hanoi, which is famous for the carpentry craft, Nguyen Huy Khiem – director of the Phuc Loc Wooden House Company has worked to uphold the time-honoured value of Vietnamese traditional architecture in modern life.

Ca Mau province to expand craft villages

The Mekong Delta province of Ca Mau is strengthening measures to develop craft villages as they face a shortage of materials and unstable prices for their products. Under the province’s plan to 2020, it targets having 37 craft villages next year, up from the current 13.

Crafting Buddha idols in Saigon

In a quiet quarter in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 6, many households have been making cement Buddha idols for decades.

Vietnamese craft villages survive test of time

In many places almost entire villages pursue a single craft for centuries and occasionally millennia.

Hue Traditional Craft Festival 2019 opens

The Hue Traditional Craft Festival 2019, the 8th edition, opened in the former imperial capital of Hue on April 26 with a grand ceremony.

Source: VNA