Local authorities prioritize craft village development

Out of US$50 billion annual GRDP of Ha Noi, craft villages account for one-fiftieth and provide tens of thousands of jobs.

At the meeting with local craftsmen, the mayor said that the recently passed Capital Law provides for the protection and promotion of craft villages.

He said the city government is working on a policy to develop rural and handicraft villages.

"In formulating the policy, the city government expects input from the city's handicraft workshops, cooperatives, and households," he said.

According to Thanh, the development of handicraft production and traditional trading villages is a top priority for the Ha Noi government.

Most importantly, according to President Tran Sy Thanh, artisanal villages are a place to preserve and promote the unique cultural values of Ha Noi and Viet Nam in general, including values that have existed for thousands of years.

The development of craft villages has helped publicize Ha Noi and Vietnamese culture to the world, confirming that Viet Nam has a unique culture, Thanh said.

He admitted that the development of the city's artisan workshops has been hampered by the fact that the city government has occasionally failed to give the artisan villages the attention they deserved.

Although Ha Noi is home to very high-quality OCOP (one commune, one product) handicrafts, their branding has not been taken care of, the mayor said.

According to Nguyen Manh Quyen, Deputy Chairman of the city's People's Committee, there are some 1,350 craft villages in Ha Noi, of which 331 have been recognized as traditional craft villages.

He said that preserving handicrafts and combining them with cultural-agricultural-rural tourism is the key for Ha Noi to improve people's incomes and living conditions.

"It is closely linked to the preservation of Vietnamese culture and is the backbone of new rural development," Quyen added.

Deputy Chairman Quyen praised handicrafts for their quality and design, saying that many of them are highly competitive in the world market because of their unique cultural characteristics.

He said the amended Capital Law supports the growth of handicraft production.

According to the Ha Noi Department of Planning and Architecture, the government is finalizing two projects for the capital's overall development through 2065 that aim to boost socio-economic growth in rural areas and preserve relics, craft villages, and natural and historical sites.

Under the two projects, there will be showrooms for artisan villages to display handicrafts and manufacturing demonstrations. In addition, handicraft workshops will be consolidated in industrial parks to free up land for agriculture.

The capital's government also aims to make handicraft production a spearhead that leads the tourism sector, and to integrate the planning of traditional villages into the city and urban area plan, thus preserving cultural features while achieving growth.

In the old days, the capital city of Thang Long – Ha Noi was the place where famous craft villages converged. Today, some of them are still preserved and developing robustly such as Ngu Xa bronze casting village and Bat Trang ceramic village./.