Hanoi (VNA) -📖 Experts urged for an improvement in creativity to increase the value of handicraft products and develop a Vietnamese brand for the industry.

Le Ba Ngoc, General Secretary of the Vietnam Handicraft Exporters Association, said that poor competitiveness is the bottleneck hindering the industry. Ngoc said that the Vietnamese handicraft industry mainly produces low value products in large quantities for retail giants like Ikea, Wal Mart and Peer 1 Import. Around 90 percent of the products are produced following ordered designs and exported under brands of the buyers. He said Vietnam remains struggling in building its strength in the handicraft market. A representative from a handicraft exporting firm said that poor designs together with less competitive prices are undermining competitiveness. Developing a firm brand in the global market is still a long way off for the local handicraft industry. Setsuko Okura, a handicraft and gift exporter from Japan, was quoted by enternews.vn as saying that handicraft products of Vietnam are diversified with great potential for exports. She said that consumption of Vietnamese handicraft products in Japan remains modest as they are considered inappropriate for Japanese consumers who prefer smartly designed products. She advised Vietnamese handicraft producers to be active in studying consumer tastes of each market to develop products with competitiveness. Experts also pointed out that the small-scale production fails to ensure the uniformity of handicraft products, adding that the link between trade villages and exporters must be enhanced. Vu Cam Tu, Director of An Do Ceramics Company, said that the development of a production chain in the handicraft industry is important to create products with originality and creativity matching consumer tastes. The association estimated that the handicraft exports reached 1.9 billion USD last year, up from 1.6 billion USD in 2014.-VNA