Tiền Giang Province earns US$5 million from exporting handicrafts. — VNA/VNS Photo

TIỀN GIANG — The Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta province of Tiền Giang is seeking ways to boost its handicraft exports by improving design, quality and competitiveness.

Every year, the handicraft cooperatives in Tiền Giang Province earn about US$5 million from exporting handicrafts.

The US is still the largest consumption market for Vietnamese handicraft products with sales accounting for 35 per cent of annual export turnover. Japan, the European Union, Australia and South Korea are also among the country’s key exporting markets.

According to Deputy Chairman of the provincial Union of Cooperatives Lê Minh Khánh, the province has established 14 handicraft cooperatives with nearly 2,000 members and created jobs for nearly 5,300 workers.

The network of handicraft cooperatives mainly operates in the fields of handicrafts, handicraft production, water hyacinth wicker, sedge mats and handicrafts for export.

The artisans earn VNĐ3.5-5 million (US$150-215) a month on average.

The villages have played an important role in creating jobs and incomes for rural people and improving their lives, helping reduce poverty and enabling the creation of new-style rural areas.

The Long Định Mat Knitting Village in Châu Thành District, for instance, has been operating for nearly 70 years and produces patterned sleeping mats with high quality and beautiful designs.

Its mats are well known in the Mekong Delta.

The province plans to have 70 per cent of the villages functioning efficiently by 2025, around 80 per cent of their workers being trained or retrained to improve their skills and knowledge of basic information technology, and ensuring hygiene and labour safety at their workplace.

It also aims to have at least 50 per cent of the villages making products recognised under the country’s One Commune-One Product programme.

It wants the average income of workers to increase by at least 150 per cent from 2020 and all production establishments to comply with environmental protection regulations.

However, they still have many limitations such as small scale and lack of mechanisation.

Many establishments lack the resources needed to obtain advanced production techniques or to expand. They also face a shortage of artisans, many of whom prefer to work in industries to earn higher incomes, experts say. — VNS