Woven bamboo and rattan is a key product among Vietnam's export handicraft products. Specialists say that Vietnam has great potential in bamboo rattan products. Currently, the world consumes about US$4 billion a year of bamboo rattan products. However, total production value of bamboo rattan in the world only totals US$1.5 billion of which Vietnam makes up a small share.

Vietnam has some 238 businesses specializing in processing, producing and exporting bamboo rattan products. In the bamboo and rattan sector, there are about 342,000 workers living in 713 craft villages, accounting for 24 percent of the total craft villages in Vietnam.

Although rich in development potential, the bamboo and rattan sector suffers from several unsustainable factors. In particular, at the 5th National Meeting on Sustainable Production and Consumption held recently in Nha Trang, Le Xuan Thinh from the Vietnam Cleaner Production Center (VNCPC) said that Vietnam is eradicating bamboo and rattan trees as it has no planning/projects on growing new bamboo and rattan areas. Meanwhile, a huge amount of waste has been produced during processing. The percentage of materials destroyed by termites remains high due to inappropriate preliminary treatment and conservation. In addition, processing contains many risks such as environmental pollution caused by diesel petroleum use, inappropriate drying technology in the raining season resulting in fuel material consumption and a high percentage of spoilt material, inefficient energy consumption due to old machinery, and water and chemical waste during the bleaching process. There are still risks of environment pollution in the product completion process such as PVA and solvent discharge.

Increasing demand for bamboo and rattan products in major markets such as European Union and the United States requires high-quality products. Aware of unsustainable nature of the bamboo and rattan sector, an EU funded project entitled "Establishing a Sustainable Production System for Rattan Products in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam" aims to boost the export of sustainable rattan products from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. The project has held training courses on cleaner production in the rattan sector for businesses. Apart from simple measures such as using natural light and high efficiency and energy saving lamps to replace lighting systems or reusing chemicals, there is great potential for cleaner production in other parts of the production process. Diesel petroleum can be replaced by secondary environmentally friendly vegetable oil. Boiling systems can be improved with additional oil spouts. Steam produced by steaming system in companies can be made use up to boil rattan. In the drying and conservation stage, businesses should build a rattan drying system which reuses waste from the processing process to replace coal and electricity. This stage can help save 61 tonnes of coal a year. In addition, new technology that uses carbon to treat termites and create natural colors (white, grey and black) as a replacement for old drying technology will help reduce chemical volume use by 30-50 percent. Waste that is produced from processing such as leaves or bark can be used as fertilizer.

Sabine Gish Boie, the project manager said that the project has carried out an assessment of over 6,000 ha rattan volume in Quang Nam and Hue of which 2,000 ha is integrated into the project for sustainable management. Le Xuan Thinh said that seven companies have committed to applying cleaner production processes.

The Au Co Bamboo and Rattan Company is among first businesses in Quang Nam to receive assistance from the Cleaner Production in Industry (CPI) component and the project of establishing a Sustainable Production System for Rattan Products in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. It has selected a range of cleaner production measures with the concentration on replacing the rattan bleaching system and building a waste treatment system, including dust minimizing and drying systems. For example, the stainless steel additional heating drying system will help reduce 40 percent of the chemical used and half production time. Therefore, the company can save VND30 million per month of its production costs. In addition, the company has installed natural lighting plastic plates and replaced incandescent bulbs by compact lamps. Apart from economic benefits, after two years applying cleaner production measures, the company has reduced 3.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide, 1,300 m3 of waste water and 10.8 tonnes of chemical substances released into environment annually./.