To promote the strengths and cultural values of ethnic minority products, on September 29th, the Industry and Trade Magazine organized a seminar on the theme "Exploiting cultural values and developing products in ethnic minority and mountainous regions." At the seminar, many recommendations and solutions were proposed to promote the exploitation of cultural values in the development of products in ethnic minority and mountainous regions.
At the seminar, Ms. Tran Tuyet Lan, Director of Craft Link Social Enterprise Joint Stock Company, a representative of a social enterprise with many activities supporting the development of goods for ethnic minority communities, shared that over the past time, Craft Link has carried out projects throughout the country with many ethnic minority groups to train and support them in increasing their internal capacity, using their traditional handicraft skills and cultural characteristics to promote new products to the market, thereby increasing their income.
In the process of supporting these groups, Craft Link has developed individual plans tailored to each ethnic minority group. This is because each ethnic minority group has a different traditional cultural identity, language, and way of expressing their culture, and especially, their approach to receiving training also differs.
Each month, Craft Link invites representatives from an ethnic minority group to Hanoi to showcase their traditional crafts. Every year, Craft Link organizes a traditional handicraft fair and invites ethnic minority groups to participate. This provides ethnic minority and mountainous communities with the opportunity to interact directly with customers. They not only showcase their traditional culture but also gain information about market demands and trends.
"Through the support of Craft Link, ethnic minority groups have gained new knowledge and strengthened all their traditional craft skills, thereby preserving their traditional culture and cultural identity embedded in their products," emphasized Ms. Tran Tuyet Lan.
However, Ms. Tran Tuyet Lan shared that the most difficult thing when exploiting the distinctive products of ethnic minority communities is how to seamlessly integrate traditional cultural values into new products. It's necessary to carefully select which details, patterns, and motifs are characteristic of these products to incorporate into new ones. In addition, the new products must have features and functions that suit the needs and tastes of consumers in order to thrive in the market.
At the same time, research is also needed to find ways for customers and foreign tourists to recognize the cultural aspect when they look at the products. Ms. Tran Tuyet Lan stated that the task of organizations like Craft Link is to find ways to widely disseminate these distinctive cultural values, thereby supporting even more ethnic minority groups.
Effectively leveraging cultural values in product development.
Based on the real-life story of Craft Link, Ms. Be Hong Van, Deputy Director of the Department of Ethnic Policy, Committee for Ethnic Minorities Affairs, stated that there are five important factors contributing to the success in exploiting cultural values in product development for ethnic minority and mountainous communities.
That is, the intrinsic strength of the value chain owner, including: educational level, practical experience, aspiration, pride in the community and ethnic culture; access to technology; exploitation of local knowledge through product development; connection from policy to experts or science and technology; promotion of cultural traditions, accessed and utilized through community tourism development as well as through communication and marketing efforts.
"By leveraging traditional values, businesses provide products and services to the market, and once these products gain market recognition, they will contribute to preserving and promoting the fine cultural traditions of each nation," emphasized Ms. Be Hong Van.
From an expert's perspective, Dr. Chu Xuan Giao, from the Institute of Cultural Studies, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, highly appreciates the efforts of ethnic minority and mountainous communities in proactively selecting distinctive and unique products associated with their own ethnic culture to sell in domestic and international markets.
According to Dr. Chu Xuan Giao, culture can be both tangible and intangible, and we should not be complacent with what we have. The key is to orient ourselves towards survival, development, enrichment, and continuous innovation.
“Innovation here doesn't mean just following the crowd and doing what others are doing, or fishing and doing what others are doing. It means not simply following trends, but finding your own unique path. At the same time, people need to develop long-term strategies, persevere, and strive to create their own sustainable brand,” shared Dr. Chu Xuan Giao.
Leveraging cultural elements to create advantages for products from ethnic minority and mountainous regions.
In previous years, the issue of supporting the development of products from ethnic minority and mountainous regions has been integrated into socio-economic development programs and policies for these areas.
To date, the program for developing products in ethnic minority and mountainous areas has organized 445 models supporting production development along the value chain and 402 models for community production development; created 249 startup and business models in ethnic minority areas; and organized 52 events connecting product consumption markets, as well as festivals linking trade with tourism; and events promoting the consumption of ethnic minority products, etc.
In particular, 35 training conferences on trade capacity were organized, including training on trade skills and sales/business skills, with the participation of more than 1,400 ethnic minority people.
However, in practice, the exploitation of the cultural values of ethnic groups has not been fully realized. Production processes and trade promotion and advertising activities have not fully conveyed the unique cultural elements of ethnic minority communities in each locality.
To contribute to promoting the consumption of products from ethnic minority and mountainous regions that are rich in ethnic cultural values, Ms. Be Hong Van proposed several areas that need to be focused on in the coming time. Specifically, it is necessary to create an environment that connects partners participating in the value chain linkage, including government agencies, which represent mechanisms and policies.
At the same time, leveraging the role of businesses in the area has successfully implemented technical support and created momentum for exploiting cultural values in production and product development in ethnic minority regions.
To leverage cultural values in the development of products in ethnic minority and mountainous regions, economic experts suggest that state-supported projects should incorporate intellectual elements, traditional cultural values, and community cohesion into the criteria for selecting projects to support value chain development.
In particular, policies must pay attention to local artisans because they are living witnesses who will transmit and preserve local culture for generations to come.
In particular, concerted efforts and unity are needed from all levels of government, localities, businesses, and ethnic minority communities to turn cultural elements into advantages. This will help to further spread the unique cultural characteristics of products from ethnic minority regions.
Industry and Trade Magazine
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