(VEN) - Despite being rated as essential Vietnamese products, the country's typical rural industrial products (TRIPs) are still struggling to find markets which value them properly.
Potentials left open
Typical rural industrial products (TRIPs) are industrial and handicraft innovative, high-quality products that have been selected from rural manufacturers. They must meet certain standards of quality for export. For this reason, TRIPs can be rated as the most essential products both in terms of quality and aesthetic value. However, their potential remains open.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, there are more than 4.500 craft villages in Vietnam, with famous names including Bat Trang and Bau Truc pottery villages, Dinh Quan bronze casting village, Chuon Ngo mosaic village and Van Phuc silk village. With such a large number of craft villages and production units, the number of TRIPs should have been more than 200 products since 2006.
In addition, handicraft products are the pride of Vietnam because they have become popular products with trade partners. Also, annual export revenues of handicraft products contributed to a rise in the country's foreign currency earnings. In 2001, handicraft products exports reached US$1.8 billion, an increase of 12 percent compared with 2010, in which the added value accounted for 60 percent of the sector's export revenue. However, the contributions of TRIPs of US$1.8 billion in export revenues remained modest even though they are judged to have great value. The development of craft village tourism with a focus on historical and cultural value has not been fully exploited, giving the products less chance to be brought to domestic and overseas markets.
Finding ways to export TRIPs
How to develop TRIPs for export and enhance rural industrial development so as to keep up with other sectors is a tough question for administration agencies. According to many experts, TRIPs are products for rural production bases which are acknowledged by competence authorities, with their value one level higher than other products from the same group. However, they are only single products that are hand-made products on the small scale. This results in an inequality of the products.
Despite many difficulties, the interference of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) with other related agencies is expected to find a new direction for TRIPs. After the release of Decree 35/2010/TT-BCT, the selection for TRIPs will officially take place at five stages including communes, districts, provinces, regions and nation. Then they will have higher legal entities and more supports in the production and promotion processing of products.
To implement tasks assigned by MoIT, the Agency for Industrial Promotion (AIP) is to design a private website for promoting TRIPs, which is expected to create a level playing field for introducing products to the world market. AIP will also coordinate with associations and sectors to find new markets and help TRIPs be exported.
At MoIT's hand-over meeting held in July 2011, the Deputy Minister of MoIT Hoang Quoc Vuong, stressed that TRIPs are not only a key for the development of craft villages but they are also a bright spot for the development of the whole rural industry sector. Therefore, it is very necessary to design a private website for TRIPs, which in the long-term Vietnam could develop into an electronic commerce network and modernize a manual sector like arts and craft. If this project comes true, foreign customers will have a multi-dimensional look on Vietnamese TRIPs and handicraft sector in general, helping to export them directly to global market.
A transaction network is a rather complicated area that requires lucidity, capabilities and skills from participants as well as administrators. As Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai said, "when we have unity and unanimity, we can overcome all obstacles and challenges". Let's hope that with the support of numerous ministries and sectors, TRIPs will hold their ground in the future./.
By Viet Nga
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