Domestic porcelain makers reclaim market

Vietnamese porcelain products, especially the high-end segment, have gradually regained the domestic market thanks to technological investment, after years of losing out to foreign products.
Vietnamese porcelain products, especially the high-end segment, havegradually regained the domestic market thanks to technologicalinvestment, after years of losing out to foreign products.

Thecountry currently has roughly 290 porcelain production establishmentswith the famous trademarks of Minh Long, Bat Trang and Hai Duong.

GeneralDirector of the Hai Duong porcelain company Nguyen Do Ha said that MinhLong products are dominating the country's high-end porcelain segment,while CK and Hai Duong products are also having large market shares ofthe lower-quality segments.

In 2012, the total turnover of thecountry's porcelain market was roughly 5.6 trillion VND (262.9 millionUSD), of which Vietnamese producers accounted for only 30 percent.

Chineseporcelain products used to flood the domestic market as they werecheaper than Vietnamese products, even though the domestic samples weremore diversified.

General Director of the Minh Long porcelaincompany Ly Ngoc Minh said that some Chinese porcelain products arecheaper as they are fired at low temperatures which cause them to retainpoisonous lead.

Minh explained that in porcelain production, thefiring process, which decides the durability and quality of theproducts, was the most expensive stage.

He said while goodquality Vietnamese porcelain products are fired at a temperature of1,2800C, many Chinese products are fired at 8000C only.

Domesticporcelain producers also admitted that they lost to foreign rivals asmost domestic establishments are small with outdated technologies.

Tocompete better against foreign products, Vietnamese porcelain producershave done their best to restructure and boost investment intechnologies in recent years.

Minh Long, for example, has spentmore than 100 billion VND (4.69 million USD) yearly to upgrade machinesand equipment since 2010.

Thanks to the investment, Minh Long currently has more than 15,000 designs, more than 3,000 of which qualify for exports.

Theinvestment has also helped Minh Long to increase its annual output andturnover by 20 to 30 percent on average through productivity improvementand cut in sale prices in the past few years.

According to Minh,in the high-end homeware segment, his products currently account for 80percent of the country's market share, while the remaining 20 percentis claimed by products from Germany, France, Italy and the US.-VNA

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