VietNamNet Bridge - The daring business plans in traditional craft villages have attracted billions of dong worth of capital.

Vietnam's handicrafts are associated with wetland rice civilization

Vowing to change the production method of Cu Chi rice paper, Duy Anh Food Import/Export Company has attracted tens of billion of dong from commercial banks and cooperatives to buy machines and equipment. 

The company’s products are now exported to over 30 countries, including the US, EU, Japan and South Korea.

Duy Anh’s general director Le Duy Toan said instead of the manual production method, the company has set up an industrial production process to create rice paper with natural color. 

Duy Anh has stopped making products in a traditional way and is drying rice paper under the sun, because products made this way cannot enter foreign supermarkets because of humidity and hygiene problems.

Some months ago, a startup project on building a Le Gia brand, a fish sauce for children initiated by Le Anh and Hai Van in Thanh Hoa province, got offers for a VND4-6 billion loan from three investment funds at the same time – CyberAgent, VinaCapital and Sunhouse Group.

The investors of Le Gia left a good impression on investors with their transparency and branding method. They were selective in input materials, product quality and brand identification. Le Gia’s product samples are taken for testing every month.

Also in 2018, a group of young people in Dong Nai called for billions of dong worth of capital for De-form Pottery, a project which allows people to experience the pottery production culture.

In Ben Tre, Tien Giang and Can Tho, the project on restoring craft villages to make products from coconut was one of 10 startup projects that AMD Fund promised to finance.

Other craft village restoration projects exist, such as Fiber which aims to standardize and renovate sedge-made products in Nga Son village, and F4F which makes wooden clogs with carved dragons. After several years of implementation, the projects have had products exported to tens of foreign markets.

Ha Thuy Diem, the owner of a handicrafts stall at Ben Thanh Market, said about 90 percent of products available at the stall are from traditional craft villages.

Japanese and Korean tourists like to buy bags, shoes and hats made from rattan, bamboo and water hyacinth, and items made from buffalo horn from northern craft villages. 

Seeing these achievements, commercial banks have disbursed more money for projects of this kind.

Nguyen Thanh Ha, a craftsman in Ha Ba Tran Flower Garden, said he had borrowed VND5 billion from banks to develop a 5,000 square meter apricot garden.

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