The export value of Vietnam bamboo and rattan products have grown strongly by 44.4% in the year of 2019. However, the value just reached 474 million USD in 2019, less than half of the target for 2020 set out ten years ago. In the total export value of Vietnamese handicrafts, rattan and bamboo products account for the highest value in non-timber forest products.
Vietnam’s rattan, bamboo and sedge products are mainly exported to EU countries, accounting for 31.44% of the total, and increasing by 35.36% compared to the previous year. Next is the US market, accounting for 19.5% and nearly doubling compared to 2018. Japanese market accounted for 9.3% and grew by 10.8%. In addition, Vietnam’s rattan, bamboo and sedge products are present in other markets such as Germany, China, Poland, Denmark…
In general, in the past year, the export value of Vietnam bamboo and rattan products have grown in almost markets. Especially to India, the export value has increased more than two times, but it is still small.
Currently, Vietnam has 723 rattan and bamboo processing villages and more than 1,000 exporting enterprises of bamboo and rattan products, attracting 342,000 workers. Despite the large number of households and exporting companies, the export segment of Vietnam bamboo and rattan products account for less than 3% of the world market. While the scale of global trade in rattan and bamboo products is up to 14-15 billion USD, Vietnam’s bamboo and rattan industry is still sluggish at the export value of several hundred million USD.
According to an exporting company of Vietnam handicraft products, the company is producing and selling stable types of hanging lamps, table lamps, storage boxes, and fruit baskets. However, they face big challenges of the quantity and quality of raw materials. Therefore, prices are getting higher and higher.
Despite advantages of growing and developing materials, Vietnam still has to import this group of materials for production. According to General Department of Forestry, Vietnam annually consumes more than 900 million bamboo trees for various purposes. Vietnam currently has approximately 1.5 million hectares of bamboo with an estimated reserve of about 6 billion trees.
However, most of this bamboo area is protection forest, primary forest that needs to be preserved, not exploited. The bamboo production area in the country is around 85,000 hectares, with a reserve of 350 million trees. This amount only meets one third of the demand for raw materials for the production of bamboo products.
In addition, the linkage in the bamboo value chain is still loose, inefficient, and does not ensure fairness and transparency. This has negatively affected the quality and traceability of products. Also, this reduced the competitiveness of handicrafts made from Vietnamese bamboo in the world market.
Vietnamese sources: https://vnbusiness.vn/thi-truong/xuat-khau-may-tre-tang-truong-manh-1066059.html