Handicrafts are thriving

Over the past nearly two months, in the Tho Ha traditional rice paper village in Van Ha commune (Viet Yen district) has been always busy to meet the market demand during the Lunar New Year (Tet). In normal days, Trinh Dac Manh's family produces more than 8,000 rice papers but these days he had to hire workers to increase production in order to meet the needs of customers. 

Incense making in Dang Thi Thin's family in Am village, Bong Am commune (Son Dong district).

According to the head of the household and Chairman of the Tho Ha rice paper and noodle cooperative, many agents and consumers know rice papers here for their high quality, so they often order for use during Tet. Three months ahead of Tet holiday, the volume of goods produced and sold increased 2 to 3 times, reaching 4-6 million units per month and the prices also inched up.

The same atmosphere has been seen in the traditional carpentry villages of BaiOi in Dinh Tri commune (Bac Giang city) and Dong Thuong in Lang Son commune (Yen Dung district). The owner of Chu Van Liem furniture workshop in Dong Thuong village said: “Recently, although there are many sophisticated products made by modern technology, many consumers still prefer crafts. For example, it takes more than a month to make a Chinese four screens of flowers and birds painting but many people still ordered it. My family had to hire more workers and did not dare to receive many orders”.

In Am village, Bong Am commune (Son Dong district), the traditional incense making craft is also bustling during the last lunar month. Thanks to raw materials exploited and processed by local households such as filling sap, incense sticks, charcoal, bamboo sticks ... 

With the crafting method, the incense here has a characteristic smell and does not cause environmental pollution and affect human health so it is widely used, especially on the occasion of the Lunar New Year. In the last months of the lunar year, the demand is high, so the families here have to work from dawn to dusk and on both Saturday and Sunday. They also have to hire more laborers to make incense.

According to Dang Thi Thin, head of the incense workshop, the Am village incense has existed for a long time. Despite the ups and downs of the craft over time, the people here still keep it and the way of making incense has not changed. They still use hands, not machines, in all stages. Therefore, the Bong Am incense has gained an increasingly firm foothold in the market...

Helping handicrafts to reach farther

Accompanying craft villages, authorities of localities and cooperatives with traditional crafts have joined hands to support craft development. In the Bai Oi Carpentry Cooperative (Dinh Tri commune), 59 members of the cooperative have worked together to produce and supply products to customers, creating advantages to expand the domestic market and export, thus increasing revenue. 

Packing rice papers in Tho Ha rice paper and noodle cooperative in Van Ha commune (Viet Yen district).

Representatives of the cooperative affirmed that Tet is a "business season" of the village but it does not pursue the quantity. The quality of the furniture must be always ensured so that the cooperative can maintain its brand and develop in a long term.

Wishing the incense making craft to further develop, Bong Am commune has encouraged households to make incense and provided conditions for customers to link with producers in consumption. Currently, the Bong Am incense has been purchased by a store in Hanoi. 

Since the Tho Ha rice paper was granted a collective brand certificate by the National Office of Intellectual Property of Vietnam under the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2016, the households here have linked up in production and set up a cooperative supplying the quality product. Since 2017, the product has been put on the shelf in Big C supermarket chain and many supermarkets and shops in Hanoi...

According to Nguyen Van Phuong, head of the Trade Management Division (the provincial Department of Industry and Trade), in the past years, the local trade villages have continued to develop and seen more favourable business thanks to a number of support policies by the provincial People's Committee, the Department of Industry and Trade, and local authorities. On this Lunar New Year, products of many branded craft villages have been sold more easily. The prices have also risen due to high demand.

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Bao Khanh