Bat Trang pottery enters an exciting new era with the launch of its new brand ‘BAT TRANG VIETNAM – 1,000 YEARS OF CRAFTSMANSHIP’ and an Export Promotion Center, at the Temple of Literature in Hanoi on November 17.
Bat Trang village, located on the banks of the Red River, 13 kilometres from Hanoi, has a history of producing the highest quality ceramics. Pottery in Bat Trang dates back to at least 1010 when Bat Trang was known as the white clay district with 72 hills of white clay suitable for ceramics. Around 1100, Hua Vinh Cao taught the people of Bat Trang how to make a white glaze, and the village has been busy producing its distinctive ceramics ever since. The National Museum of Vietnamese History in Hanoi has a collection of ceramics from Bat Trang dating back 700 years.
Now over 80 per cent of the villagers are involved in ceramic production and they export goods to the value of $40 million each year. The skilled craftsmen, who create that Bat Trang look, are able to produce high quality goods to order, meeting the demands of international buyers and their markets.
The event marks the start of a fresh chapter in Bat Trang’s long history and the Temple of Literature founded around the same time as the village, in 1070, and probably Hanoi’s most historic building makes the perfect venue for this occasion. The project is funded by the Mekong Private Sector Development Facility (MPDF), a multi-donor initiative managed by the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank. Len Cordiner the Senior Adviser to the MPDF said that the launch of the brand and the creation of the Export Promotion Center marked a crucial stage in the development of Bat Trang.
“Today - in a global marketplace – we face fresh challenges and our task is to ensure that the over 400 producers working in Bat Trang both win a foothold in the global market as well as maintaining their presence in the local market.” Said Mr. Cordiner
The Bat Trang brand will belong to the village’s community and will ultimately give the small scale producers in the village international recognition as well as securing their position in the domestic market. The Bat Trang Ceramics Export Promotion Center (BTEP) consists of a small management team devoted to ensuring the highest level of customer service in order to successfully market the Bat Trang brand both internationally and domestically.
Both the brand and the Center have been identified by MPDF as essential for marketing the unique product offered by customers to Bat Trang. They were established by the Bat Trang Ceramics and Pottery Association (BTCA), a not-for-profit organisation established in 2002 with the goal of developing a sustainable ceramics industry in the Bat Trang region. With around thirty producers now participating in the first pilot phase of the project, the Association is able to provide them with the services expected by international buyers, language skills (including English), shipment management, arrangement of export packaging, documentation etc.
MPDF believes that this project will lead to a stable long-term future for the local community and will be a good case study for other small scale industries in Vietnam, where the producers have a unique value proposition such the location and history of Bat Trang have provided here.
So far the BTEP has established show rooms and launched a website - battrang-ceramics.org - which acts as a B2B ceramics marketplace and introduces international buyers to a select range of traditional and modern ceramics carrying the Bat Trang brand. There are already a series of measures planned for next year, including attendance at selected international trade shows, a re-launch of branded products to target the top-end retail outlets, and the development of tour packages marketed to local and overseas tour operators.
