Ha Noi (VNA) – The Van Phuc silk village has been enjoying prosperity as every household weaves silk and everybody sells silk.
Van Phuc silk has had many ups and downs and the village has been restored and developed since 1990s. With sewing machines operating around the year, Van Phuc villagers have lived on this craft for many generations.
Nguyen Thi Tam, Chairwoman of the Trieu Van Mao high-grade traditional silk establishment, said her family’s silk workshop has 10 sewing machines with around 20 workers. Their income is much higher than farmers’, she said.
Situated near Ha Dong city, 8km southwest of Ha Noi on Nguyen Trai Road , the village is now home to 1,280 households, 90 percent of whom are involved in silk production and business. The village turns out more than 2 million metres of silk per year with its annual turnover reaching more than 100 billion VND.
Van Phuc silk is mainly sold in the domestic market to foreign visitors in small amounts. It is still being exported through intermediaries. President of the Van Phuc Traditional Craft Association Nguyen Huu Chinh said Van Phuc silk products will be more profitable if the marketing work is better done.
In addition to Van Phuc craft village which is renowned for thousands of years, many new craft villages such as fried onion making villages have appeared during the rural economic structuring process.
Fried onion is served in traditional Vietnamese dishes like vermicelli and sour crab soup, teamed glutinous rice and savoury rice rolls. Earlier, these shops have to make fried onion by themselves but the production now has been specialised.
Fried onion making does not require lots of care, that’s why it can take advantage of idle labour. “In recent years, fried onion in Thuan Quang village, Duong Xa commune, Gia Lam district is not only sold in domestic market but also exported to the Netherlands, Poland and Taiwan,” said Duong Thi Phuong, owner of a production workshop in Gia Lam district, Ha Noi. According to initial statistics, the village’s fried onion export volume is between 5-7 tonnes per month.
Tran The Minh, head of the Thuan Quang village, said more than 130 out of 346 households in the province are involved in this craft which has brought back main income, creating jobs for the locals in the village and neighbouring Duong Quang and Kieu Ki communes.
”In Viet Nam, the rural people’s life would be more prosperous if they have been occupied by crafts,” Vice Secretary General of the Viet Nam Craft Villages Association Luu Duy Dan affirmed on the sidelines of a recent exhibition-cum-fair on Viet Nam’s craft villages in Ha Noi.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development plans to implement a programme to preserve and develop traditional craft villages. The programme is designed to accelerate rural economic restructuring, hunger eradication and poverty reduction, job generation and conserve and bring into play traditional identities during the process of national industrialisation and modernisation.
By 2015, the nation targets to conserve 321 traditional craft villages and develop 114 craft villages, combing their crafts with tourism, and 240 new craft villages.
Over recent years, many localities have restored their craft villages which have created jobs for redundant local workers with income 3-4 times being higher than farmers’. Hence, the poverty rate in craft areas is much lower than the country’s average rate.-Enditem
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