Kim Son District currently has nearly 5,000 businesses, establishments and individual households involved in planting and processing sedge. Each year Kim Son sedge craft village generates annual revenue of more than 200 billion VND from processing sedge, creating jobs for 23,250 local workers.
Up to now, there are seven sedge craft village in Kim Son district, which has been recognized by Ninh Binh province. Enterprises engaged in sedge handicraft products have gradually made innovation in their production and business methods. Also, they renewed their management and improved the capacity of staff and workers’ skills to meet the integration requirements.
Parellel with that, they focused on building new facilities and advanced equipment in production and business, ensuring product quality according to international standards and customers’ styles. Moreover, they should intense trade promotion, improve product appearances, and reduce selling price to improve product competitiveness.
Along with production process, Kim Son sedge craft village has focused on expanding the sedge growing area to ensure raw materials for export process. In 2006, the sedge growing area of Kim Son reached nearly 500 hectares while this area reached 600 hectares by the end of 2007. The growing area of sedge is concentrated along 13 communes in the district.
However, due to the recent decrease in the consumption of sedge products for export, many sedge processing enterprises have encountered difficulties signing new contracts. On the other hand, the amount of sedge materials in stock was still quite large, causing the price of sedge to continue decreasing. Therefore, several households did not continue to maintain the existing sedge area. As a result, growing productivity and quantity decreased in comparison with the previous year.
In order to support handicraft industry in Kim Son village, the province proposed a number of specific policies and solutions. Namely, the province created conditions for capital, production space, and infrastructure for investment projects. Also, the province mobilized businesses and establishments in the Sedge Industry Association to contribute capital together with a fund to stabilize the price of raw sedge to support sedge growers when the price of sedge is low, in order to ensure the sedge growing area.
Vietnamese sources: https://sites.google.com/site/hangcoikimsonseagrass/cac-bai-viet-ve-cay-coi-kim-son-ninh-binh/nghecoikimson