Many workers in craft villages in the northern mountainous province of Vinh Phuc have enjoy continuous rises in their income, thanks to the province’s support policy for local small industry and handicraft in rural areas.

Vinh Phuc currently counts 25 trade villages, with 19 engaged in traditional occupations and 6 in new ones. Those villages create stable jobs for around 45,000 workers.

One advantage of such craft villages is that any one, from men to women, young to old, and even school children, can join working when they have some free time.

The provincial administration has offered assistance to local workers to take vocational training, and to production households to buy machinery and equipment. The authorities also built planning to expand trade villages so that local production enterprises and households can widen their production scale.

One of the examples of villages benefitting from such support is Yen Lac town, where all the four hamlets in the town engage in woodwork. Support from the administration has helped local residents diversify their products, and gradually expand production scale.

Tens of enterprises have been set up in Yen Lac besides more than 800 households operating small- and medium-sized workshop. They employ about 5,000 local labourers, with young people gradually becoming main workers in the sector.

According to Nghiem Xuan Cuong, head of the economy club in Dong hamlet, Yen Lac town, Yen Lac’s carpentry products have been sold in other cities and provinces, including those in the southern region.

Many households in the locality each earn hundreds of millions of Vietnam dong a year from woodwork, and each worker can pocket up to 350,000 VND (15.08 USD) per day.

Another carpentry village is Thanh Lang in the namesake town in Binh Xuyen district, where more than 2,000 households engage in the occupation, offering stable jobs to locals.

At many meetings on the labour market in Vinh Phuc, delegates expressed concern about the risk of labour shortage in the locality, especially a lack of manual workers.

They explained that other occupations like construction and foreign invested businesses in the locality have attracted locals by offering high wages. Besides, many local youths have been drawn into small trading and services in urban areas.

Therefore, they said, craft production facilities should offer higher salaries and improve their working environment to have a stable workforce.

To preserve craft villages, the provincial People’s Committee has issued a decision on vocational training, under which nearly 20 courses are opened each year in towns and communes.

Besides, there are annual provincial skill competitions that aim to encourage artisans to carry forward their innovation in order to churn out products of artistic and economic values.

It is noteworthy that the committee approved the planning scheme on the development of small industry by 2020 with a vision towards 2030. Accordingly, Vinh Phuc expects to house 24 clusters of small industry and craft villages by 2030.

Currently, the province has invested more than 219 billion  VND in building eight clusters of small industry and craft villages, covering over 81 hectares.

The province has been building pilot production models using clean technology, and assisting industrial production establishments in rural areas in participating in industrial and trade fairs and exhibitions not only in the country but also abroad.

Director of the provincial industrial extension centre Nguyen Xuan Binh said the source of capital from the centre has partly helped ease capital shortage of local production facilities and stimulated investment from enterprises, cooperatives and business households.

In the time ahead, Vinh Phuc will give priority to developing industries that the province has advantages in, with the aim of increasing the proportion of industry and handicraft in the rural economic structure. It is noteworthy that the province has already fulfilled the criterion on electricity supply in building new-style rural areas, laying the foundation for industrialization.