HUU HANH - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

1998 was a milestone for the Huu Hanh Embroidery Establishment in Dalat. Ms. Huu Hanh, the owner, brought 40 embroidered tapestries to display for the first time at a 10day international handicraft exhibition in Osaka (Japan).Vietnam had three representatives attending this exposition: Sy Hoang (HCM City), ao dai (Vietnam's traditional dress); Viet Thanh (Binh Duong), ceramics; and Huu Hanh (Dalat), embroidered pictures. Huu Hanh's stall was situated in an area displaying carpets and fabrics made in India and Pakistan. Quite a few guests visited the exhibition on the opening day. With half of the embroidered pictures being sold, Huu Hanh's participation was a success. Many Japanese people favored her tapestries depicting flowers. After the expo, some of them came to Vietnam and visited  

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her showroom in Dalat.Hanh said that she had received many invitations to take part in exhibitions and fairs abroad, but she had to refuse most of them because of a tight budget. The main market for her products is local customers. Apart from its main showroom located in Dalat, Huu Hanh opened two agencies in HCM City and Hanoi, and a showroom is to be inaugurated soon in Nha Trang. "Probably this is the right time to expand business abroad, " Hanh said. The success in Japan encourages her to prepare more embroidered pictures to participate in another handicraft exhibition to be held in France in March this year.Few people know that Huu Hanh Embroidery is successful thanks to a loan borrowed from the Hunger Eradication and Povince Alleviation Program. Being of Quang Ngai origin and growing up in Dalat, Hanh learnt embroidery from her mother when she was quite young. She once worked for a small embroidery unit and later taught embroidery at the Anh Dao Cooperative. At that time, the main work was only to embellish tablecloths, pillowslips, handkerchiefs, shirts and dresses.In 1985, Hanh began to embroider pictures for home decoration during her spare time. It was in 1994 that a business opportunity came to her when some officials from the Dalat Trade Department visited her home. Seeing the beautiful embroidered pictures, they recommended them for the Giang Vo Spring Fair in Hanoi. Of the 40 pictures shown there,10 were sold. This was economically meaningful and indicated that embroidered pictures could be marketed profitably. After the fair, learning that Hanh did not have the required capital to expand production, representatives from the Vietnam Union of Cooperatives (Hanoi) assisted her in borrowing VND40 million from the Hunger Eradication and Poverty Alleviation Program. With this loan, Hanh bought raw materials and began to recruit employees. Currently, Hanh employs some 70 embroiderers, paying each of them a monthly salary of VND400,000 to VND2 million. An embroidered picture is sold for VND I million to VND8 million. Hanh draws sketches of these pictures herself and her establishment won the gold medals twice at the Giang Vo fairs in Hanoi. She was also awarded the "Golden Hand" rize at the National Traditional Handicraft Exhibition held in September 1997 in HCM City.After visiting Huu Hanh's showroom in Dalat, the director of the Vistar Co. Ltd. An overseas Vietnamese in the Czech Republic, wrote to her from Prague: "I admire the creativity and workmanship of the embroiders in Dalat and those who made these lively and harmonious pictures. In my opinion, there is no such showroom in the Czech Republic. Therefore, I suggest that you should plan to introduce your products in Europe. I promise to help you in your business in Prague. "