People use a machine for splitting bamboo. It was introduced to local people in Quoc Noan Cooperative by the Can Tho Industrial Promotion and Consulting Center. Nguyen Ngoc Na, head of the cooperative, said that this machine is very effective and much more efficient than the traditional method.
Each machine costs thousands of dollars, and the budget for industrial promotion is just 15,000 USD per year. This is just enough to cover vocational training.
This issue has been going on in craft villages in the Mekong Delta region for the past 5 years. Most craft villages have to come up with their own ways of generating money to invest in new machinery. With low production and competitiveness, many villagers have been forced to switch to other jobs.
The production scale of arts and craft villages in Vietnam is usually small, and links between different cooperatives are not strong. This means production is low and products are not competitive. Saving arts and craft villages is an important task to help local residents raise their incomes and preserve the traditional craft industry.
