HAND-CRAFTED PRODUCTS OF THAILAND'S VILLAGE COMMUNITIES

With thousands of tambons (village sub-districts) the length and breadth of Thailand each producing their own distinctive products, in 2001, the Thai government initiated the nationwide One Tambon One Product (OTOP) project aimed at improving incomes in village communities to help alleviate rural poverty.

Drawing its inspiration from Japan's successful One Village One Product (OVOP) scheme, Thailand's OTOP project encourages village communities to produce and market unique products and handicrafts hand-made from locally available materials utilising local wisdom and skills handed down from generation to generation.

WHAT’S OTOP?
What exactly are OTOP products? Typically they are handicrafts, cotton and silk garments, pottery, fashion accessories, household items and many other articles indigenous to each community. The essential ingredient is they are all painstakingly hand-made, frequently with great skill.

So far a number of product groups have been classified for promotion; these include food items and beverages, textiles and clothing, woven handicrafts, artistry items, gifts, household and decorative items, and non-edible herbal products. These cover traditional items made in village communities, each lovingly crafted with the inimitable flavour and style of their localities.

Different regions are noted for specific types of products:

NORTHERN THAILAND
Superb handicrafts, particularly carved wood, silverware, specialty paper products, ceramics, bamboo baskets, cotton fabrics and silver jewellery from hill-tribe minorities.

NORTHEASTERN THAILAND OR I-SAN
It is a tradition in the Northeast for villagers to make two sets of clothes - everyday work clothes and high quality silk items created with outstanding skill for special occasions like weddings and festivals. These latter items are being selected as OTOP products. Silk and cotton fabrics, especially tie-dyed mudmee designs. The most famous are Lai Khid and Phrae Wa silks. Other items include reed mats, baskets woven from water hyacinth and triangular pillows.

CENTRAL THAILAND
Traditional handicrafts of bamboo and bai lan, great earthen pots, Dan Kwian and Koh Kred pottery and terra cotta items.

EASTERN THAILAND
Famed for its fruits, fresh and processed, as well as bamboo and rattan baskets, reed mats and mudmee fabrics.

SOUTHERN THAILAND
Batik fabrics, woven products from lipao, bulrush and panan pandanus, mother-of-pearl inlays and carved wood products.

OTOP QUALITY
Village-made OTOP products are selected for promotion because of their quality and export potential. Many of the silks and Benjarong ceramics, for instance, are works of art, intricately and lovingly crafted by hand.

The project has strong government support on many levels -- identifying potential OTOP products, providing advice on production, quality control, packaging and designs that make them even more attractive to domestic and export markets. The entire OTOP product cycle comes under the supervision of a National OTOP Committee, with regional and provincial level committees to assist in identifying, developing and grading OTOP products.

Approved products of high quality are granted the privilege of utilising the specially designed OTOP label. What appears to be the letter ‘O’ at first glimpse is actually an artistic rendition of the number ‘1’ in Thai script. There’s much ingenuity inherent in the OTOP project!

OTOP CHALLENGES
By its very nature, the OTOP project comes with its own set of challenges. In traditional societies, villagers would make products either for their own use or to be exchanged, bartered or sold to neighbours. These grassroots products are made during spare time, when farming or housework has been completed. Hence production capacity and the ability to supply the volume of products required by buyers instantly becomes an issue.

With the introduction of OTOP, village communities are faced with the complex realities of trading beyond borders -- the issues of meeting deadlines, quality control, production capacity, design preferences and marketing challenges. Not all OTOP products are of export quality.

Fortunately many government agencies are providing necessary support. For instance, the OTOP Task Force of the Department of Export Promotion (DEP), Ministry of Commerce, develops activities that will assist in exporting OTOP products, such as the display of selected products at trade fairs in Thailand and overseas, as well as participating in in-store promotions and Thailand Exhibitions in other countries.Thailand Exhibitions planned for 2004 include Houston (USA), Bangalore and Chenai (India), and Sharjah (UAE).

While the OTOP project aims to increase village incomes, the government is also offering a choice -- to go into OTOP production full time with plenty of government assistance. Major government agencies provide support: the Interior Ministry's Department of Community Development works directly with the villages to fine tune their products; the Industry's Ministry's Department of Industrial Promotion plays a key role in product development, skills training and quality control; the DEP's Product Development Centre employs teams of designers to work with villagers to create marketable designs and packages for their products.

OTOP ONLINE
www.thaitambon.com

Keen to promote the use of Internet throughout the country, H.E. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra initiated the www.thaitambon.com website as a non-profit venture to assist in creating a comprehensive database of Thai villages and also to market Thai village products through the Internet.

The website went online on 24 June 2000. When the OTOP project swung into action in 2001, it quickly became a website for marketing OTOP products. The latest addition to the website is a fast developing list of OTOP Product Champions (in English), which lists three-, four- and 5-star products with photographs and contact addresses.

SHOP OTOP
The Department of Export Promotion plans to open two OTOP shops and an OTOP Centre later this year to provide international buyers and tourists greater access to the wide variety of traditional products developed under the Thai government's highly successful One Tambon One Product (OTOP) project.

With thousands of tambons (village communities) throughout Thailand each producing their own unique OTOP products, sourcing them for export or simply buying them is a challenge. Small OTOP corners in some major department stores or in the duty free sections of international airports at Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket are steps in the right direction.

However, the DEP's proposed new OTOP outlets - in the Thailand Export Mart in Bangkok, and the Export Promotion Centre in Chiang Mai - will primarily feature gift, decorative and household items targeting the wholesale, export and retail markets.
These will be geared more to finding export markets for OTOP products than retailing to tourists, utilising the DEP's InterTrader scheme to link international buyers with OTOP manufacturers, using the two OTOP outlets as sourcing centres.

On the other hand, the OTOP Centre will be much more a showcase for shoppers, occupying a substantial portion of Narayaphand, the Thai handicraft department store on Bangkok's Rajdamri Road opposite the Central World Plaza.

While operating details still need to be worked out, the three OTOP outlets are scheduled to open in August 2004.

Alternatively, a number of trade shows during 2004 will strongly feature OTOP products, both for export sourcing and for sale to the general public. The DEP now organises an OTOP showcase pavilion at the entrance of each of its major international trade shows in Thailand, as well as an OTOP section of about 200 booths, all displaying products selected (by a DEP committee) for their strong export potential.

OTOP CITY
The inaugural OTOP City held in December 2003 was one of the largest exhibitions ever held under roof in Thailand, giving the general public their first true glimpse of the massive extent of the OTOP project and the wide variety of products coming out of it. To highlight the quality available throughout Thailand, the Interior Ministry selected only four and five-star star products, inviting the best OTOP producers from all of the country's 76 provinces.

Just to underline this quality, the event's eye-catching OTOP Hall of Fame featured 20 items selected by the organising committee as the best of the best in the show. Included in the selection was the astounding Thai silk woven in Surin province that was used to make the famous shirts worn by Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and every head of state attending the 2003 APEC Summit in Bangkok.

Although specific details of OTOP City 2004 in December have yet to be announced, it portends to be an even bigger and better event, most certainly providing the best opportunity for visitors to discover and buy some of Thailand's fine OTOP products.