Mr. Do Kim Lang, Deputy Director of Trade Promotion Department, Ministry of Industry and Trade, emphasized that up until now the target export value of US$ 1.6 billion in 2014 for handicraft items is workable. Specifically, a series of orders from Japan, China is shifting to Vietnam market. Mr. Do Kim Lang explained, the order flow from these two markets to Vietnam is shifted due to the impact of the increasing minimum wage policy, thus, the production costs in China is on the rise. In addition, a number of workers produce handicraft in China fell by a large segment of employees transferring to industrial production. This causes prolonged delivery time to 60 days, while Vietnam enterprises take only about 30 days.
Furthermore, the requirement for minimum quantity of order from Chinese manufacturers is high (at least 1 container). It causes a difficulty for importers, especially those from Australia, Japan... When accessing about this issue, Mr. Le Ba Ngoc, General Secretary of the Vietnam Handicraft Exporters Association (Vietcraft) shared orders transfered to Vietnam not only by the influence on price, time or requirements of orders, the importers believe in the quality of handicrafts in Vietnam. In recent years, Vietnamese enterprises have choices in middle and high-level segments to create strategic investment and competition. Therefore, there is a big change in product quality as well as production location on the map of world handicraft exports.
According to Mr. Le Ba Ngoc, markets of America, EU and Japan are still the traditional ones, accounting for a large share of total exports of Vietnam handicraft. Besides, enterprises in the industry are focused on exploiting new markets in newly-emerging economies include Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS). Notably, the BRICS block is emerging powerfully, as in recent years; the economic development of this block is growing rapidly and will be a potential market of handicraft industry.
In BRICS block, each year Vietnam exports US$ 100 million worth of wooden products to Chinese market, and shoe to Russia... To further increase exports, Mr. Le Ba Ngoc advised small-scale businesses not to invest in cheap goods segment which likely triggers lost in business and contract broken. Therefore, these businesses should focus on mid-market fitting their production capacities, raw materials, workers' skill; expand the channel of communication, transmission of ability, value and competitiveness of Vietnam handicraft products. In particular, in August 2014, Vietcraft will jointly organize a business delegation to explore industry and trade promotion in Brazil market. However, these enterprises should register the protection of creative product design, avoiding duplication to protect the economic interests of the businesses.
Recently, in an international handicraft exhibition in Thailand, Vietnam handicraft products attract a large number of Thailand customers. The exhibition of Thailand and international handicrafts in Bangkok appealed the attention of many visitors. This exhibition was organized within the framework of the celebration of the 82nd birthday of Thailand Queen. This is an opportunity for workers to interact, learn and grow market towards a common community next year.
This exhibition attracted nearly 300 art and craft businesses in Thailand and dozens of countries in the Asia-Pacific region. It becomes an opportunity to enhance the exchange and integration and trade between handicraft markets in Thailand and the world. Vietnam did not directly involve in this exhibition, but handicrafts of Vietnam have been imported and brought to the exhibition by a Thai company. These products are ancient merchant ship models. These items are described as symbol of prosperity in business and success in life so well suited to the tastes of gifts in Thailand.