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Craftsmen returning to rice fields amid global financial crisis
Narrowed export markets, export price decreases, input material shortages and lack of capital all have been devastating trade villages.
Vietnam has to import bamboo and rattan for domestic production
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Department of Cooperatives and Rural Development, domestic materials for making handicrafts are almost exhausted due to the swift development of handicraft export markets, the strong development of industries using the same materials, and the massive export of raw materials.
Vietnam has nearly run out of rattan and valuable wood to exploit. Meanwhile, the developent of sedge-growing areas has not been given appropriate attention.
All these factors have led to a serious shortage of materials for production for trade villages. Many of these villages in Vietnam, a country once rich in rattan and bamboo, wood and sedge, have to import materials from foreign countries.
Nguyen Trong Ben, the owner of Hien Duong Enterprise, specialising in making products from rattan and bamboo in Phu Vinh trade village in Chuong My district in Hanoi, related that sometimes enterprises are not able to fulfill orders on schedule because of lack of materials.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the Bamboo Products Association Pham Quoc Khanh said that material suppliers in Quang Nam and Da Nang in the central region, which provide 90% of materials, sometimes take advantage of their monopoy, pushing material prices up, causing producers losses.
Lack of capital, the chronic disease
The big difficulty for trade villages now is that producers all are seriously lacking capital, while production costs have been increasing sharply. In the current conditions, maintaining production proves to be impossible for many workshops.
The producers are jealous that state-owned enterprises can receive support from the state but private-run enterprises have to ‘swim in the open sea all the time’.
According to Deputy Chairman of Dong Quang Ward’s People’s Committee in Tu Son district in Bac Ninh province, Phan Dinh Luong, among 193 enterprises and thousands of workshops in Dong Ky trade village, only 30 of them have been able to borrow money from banks.
Dwindling exports also mean that tens of thousands of labourers have lost their jobs. The former Ha Tay province had ten trade villages specialising in bamboo products, creating 200,000 jobs. Nguyen Thi Thuy, the owner of a small workshop in Chuong My district, related that previously, the workshop had 20 workers. However, as she cannot sell products now, the workers have returned to their home villages, while others have gone to cities to look for jobs. Some have returned to the growing of rice.
Da Hoi steel trade village once had 5,000 regular workers in its peak period. However, as a lot of workshops have been facing difficulties, a lot of workers have had to stop working, estimated at 2,000.
NLD
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