The Bamboo and Rattan Sectors in Asia: an Analysis of ... - INBAR

village in the designated cutting area. Neither traders nor collectors undertake any
post-harvest treatment of rattan.
There are only about 10 commercial-scale furniture manufacturers, plus a number
of home-based microenterprises. Most of these enterprises are fairly new. One of the
oldest in Vientiane Province was started in 1980, and others in 1985 and 1990-92.
Most are privately owned, the one important exception being the Phoudoi rattan
factory in Laksao, Borykhamsay Province, established in 1995 with support from an
army company. The furniture factories tend to be of medium size, with 30-50
employees.
The factories apply to the Provincial Forest agencies for rattan quotas. For
example, the Vientiane Rattan Factory was allocated 40 000 poles from Khamuane
Province in both 1996 and again in 1997. However, they only got 20 000 canes. Several
reasons were given for this, including that the traders failed to arrange adequate
harvesting, and that some of the harvest was siphoned off, illegally, to other buyers.
On the other hand, some do manage to get the quantities needed. The Phoudoi
company has an annual quota of 100 000 canes and by late January they had already
managed to get 10 000 canes. In 1996, their first year of business, they got only 20 000
poles for the whole year.
Rattan processing is mostly manual. The canes are boiled in oil and dried for
several days. Peeling and splitting is done by hand, and only very rudimentary tools
are used in bending and manufacture of furniture. The Phoudoi rattan factory,
however, has a full set of peeling, coring and sanding equipment. Another factory
has some equipment that was donated by a European Union project, but it is mainly
woodworking equipment and not well-suited to rattan processing.
The bulk of the finished furniture is sold within the country, with some limited
exports. The more important export is semi-finished rattan. This may be simply peeled
and straightened, or cut to size and even bent for use in furniture manufacture in
Vietnam and Thailand. Law prohibits exports of unprocessed rattan. One furniture
manufacturer reported that he sells semi-processed large-diameter canes to Vietnam
and buys rattan strips for his own use in webbing and wicker work. As the Vietnamese
strips are machine-processed, they are much cheaper and of better quality than the
strips manually processed in Laos PDR.
Wages in the rattan factories are comparable to other semi-skilled employment
(from 35 000 to 150 000 kip/month, or about $35-150). Some pay on a piece-work
basis, other fixed wages. Most employees are hired on permanent full-time basis,
though some part-time daily wage labor is also hired during peak times. The
Phoudoi Rattan Company had hired a Vietnamese factory manager, plus 15 skilled
Vietnamese workers to train the local workers in rattan furniture crafting. The
quality of their product is far superior to any other company in the country
because of their mechanized semi-processing, higher-skilled workers and better
designs.
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