“Rescuing” rural craft villages in Ho Chi Minh City

In the period of 2022 - 2025, Ho Chi Minh City has issued 10 solutions to preserve and develop craft villages and rural industries in the area.

Many difficulties and problems of craft villages and rural industries

According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ho Chi Minh City, the first difficulty is the recognition of traditional occupations, craft villages, and traditional craft villages in Ho Chi Minh City. Accordingly, due to the rapid urbanization in the city, the number of households participating in the production and business of rural products has gradually shifted to other occupations with stable and better incomes, such as trade and services. Therefore, it is not possible to ensure the criteria for recognition of traditional occupations, craft villages, and traditional craft villages according to the provisions of Decree No. 52 of the Prime Minister .

In addition, there are still many difficulties in the market for products in craft villages and rural industries. That is the competition between similar products produced with modern technology from countries in the region with handicraft products, such as bamboo blinds, rattan and bamboo leaves in craft villages in the area.

At the same time, craft villages and rural industries are also facing problems in borrowing capital to develop production and investment. Recently, the city has had many policies to support investment interest rates to develop rural industry products according to the policy to support the restructuring of the urban agricultural economy .

However, some people, businesses and cooperatives have a need to borrow capital to enjoy interest rate support according to the policy but have not been able to access loans from credit institutions because they do not meet the loan conditions, such as not having collateral, and the asset valuation is very low compared to the actual value.

10 solutions to "rescue" craft villages and rural industries

Faced with the difficulties of craft villages, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has issued a plan to support the development of rural industries and craft villages in the period of 2022 - 2025, contributing to job creation, increasing people's income, and at the same time preserving traditional cultural values in rural areas.

Accordingly, Ho Chi Minh City will focus on preserving and developing rural and traditional occupations such as rice paper production, weaving, bamboo blind production, incense making, salt production, yellow apricot growing and dried seafood processing...

At the same time, Ho Chi Minh City also focuses on preserving and developing traditional craft villages, such as the rice paper making village of Phu Hoa Dong commune, the weaving village of Thai My commune, the incense making village of Le Minh Xuan commune, the salt making village of Ly Nhon commune and the yellow apricot growing village of Binh Loi commune.

To set the goal of preserving and developing craft villages and rural industries, Ho Chi Minh City proposed 10 solutions to support, such as supporting investment in infrastructure and production premises to serve production development; supporting capital and credit for rural industry development; supporting collective economic development; supporting the transfer of scientific and technological applications in production; supporting human resource training; supporting participation in the One Commune One Product (OCOP) Program; supporting environmental protection; supporting production development associated with tourism activities; supporting trade promotion and supporting industrial promotion.