Opening of the 2025 International Craft Village Conservation and Development Festival

On the evening of November 14, the Hanoi City People's Committee, in coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, held the opening ceremony of the 2025 International Craft Village Conservation and Development Festival (Craft Village Festival). The event is a practical activity to celebrate the traditional day of the agriculture and environment sector and to celebrate major holidays of the Capital and the Nation in 2025.

Delivering the opening speech, Mr. Nguyen Duc Trung, Chairman of the Hanoi City People's Committee, stated that this year's festival is not only a showcase for quintessential products but also a space for exchange, sharing, learning, and trade connection. The event also provides an opportunity for domestic and international artisans to enjoy and experience Viet Nam's OCOP culinary culture, where each dish is a "storytelling identity," a thread connecting culture, people, and nature.

"This year's International Craft Village Festival is organized in the unique fusion of the Flower Festival and the Craft Village Festival. Blooming flowers, together with the skilled hands of artisans from across the five continents, will illuminate thousand-year Thang Long. Flowers symbolize beauty and rise, while craft villages are the crystallization of hands and intellect. This fusion conveys the message 'Culture and creativity—Connect to spread and integrate to develop.'

The event also serves as a vivid illustration of the Party's orientation on building and developing Vietnamese culture, both preserving heritage and creating new values, turning culture into an endogenous resource and a driving force for sustainable development," he shared.

According to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Vo Van Hung, the 2025 Festival not only honors the quintessence of Vietnamese crafts but also opens arms to the international community, bringing together craft villages from around the world to shine. Here, visitors can admire the fine ceramic art of Japan, Thai silk weaving, Laotian silver engraving, Indonesian ikat weaving, Indian wood carving, French hand embroidery, and the traditional weaving crafts of African nations.

Each product tells a story, a unique cultural slice, contributing to the multicolored picture of the quintessence of global crafts. Whether from Asia, Europe, Africa, or Latin America, participants share common ground: a love of labor, cultural pride, and the aspiration to create beauty. The meeting between Vietnamese and international artisans at the Festival is not merely a professional exchange but a cultural dialogue, where diverse identities intertwine, aiming at a common value of preserving, creating, and spreading the beauty of humanity.

"This year's festival, therefore, is not only a cultural and commercial celebration day but also a bridge for cooperation, creativity, and sustainable development. It is a meaningful event within the series of activities celebrating the 80^th anniversary of the August Revolution and National Day (September 2). The event offers an opportunity for us to honor our heritage and awaken national pride and the aspiration for national development in an era of international integration.

We believe that Vietnam's rural craft sector and craft villages will continue to grow robustly in the future, preserving cultural heritage while enhancing competitiveness and product value, thereby contributing to job creation, income improvement, environmental protection, and the building of an increasingly prosperous and civilized Vietnamese countryside," Deputy Minister Hung shared.

Within the framework of the program, the World Crafts Council (WCC) will conduct evaluations and consider recognizing two of Hanoi's outstanding craft villages, including Son Dong (fine-art sculpture and carving) and Chuyen My (mother-of-pearl inlay and lacquerware), as official WCC members, following Bat Trang ceramics and Van Phuc silk craft villages that have already been listed in the World Creative Crafts Cities Network. This marks a step forward, affirming Hanoi's position as a leading creative hub for handicrafts in the Asia-Pacific region.

The 2025 International Craft Village Conservation and Development Festival will take place from November 14 to 18 at the Thang Long Imperial Citadel, aiming at achieving the goal of sustainable development with the pillars of green and ecological craft villages, digital transformation, and the Net-Zero target.

The event brings together representatives from more than 30 countries and territories, along with thousands of artisans, experts, entrepreneurs, and policymakers, turning an over 4,000-m² space into an international cultural forum that spreads the quintessence of traditional craftsmanship.

The festival features spaces honoring craft villages that meet international standards, areas showcasing heritage and typical craft villages nationwide, and exhibition zones about craft village tourism, green economy, digital transformation, and Net-Zero. Continuous activities, including artisan–artist exchanges and art and OCOP culinary performances, will be held in combination with a series of workshops, trade and investment promotion events, handicraft competitions, and a fair highlighting Hanoi's craft villages and safe agricultural products.