Bangkok's Fair-Trade Craft Sales

Buy Fine Thai Handicrafts at Locals' Prices

Dec 31, 2008 Susan Cunningham

At ThaiCraft's regular Bangkok shows, buy well-made Thai crafts at set prices and ensure the maker gets a fair share.

When Bangkokians are looking for handbags, stuffed toys, woven baskets, wooden picture frames, silver jewelry, candles, tableware, lamps, bed linen, souvenirs and holiday ornaments, they skip the shops, street stalls and wandering vendors--and bargaining. Instead, they go to the fair trade craft show. It's held at least one Saturday per month, usually in a hotel in central Bangkok.

A schedule of upcoming shows and information on the workers and products can be found on the ThaiCraft Association's website.

Export Quality at Thai Prices

ThaiCraft represents 70 groups of artisans. Altogether, they comprise between 3,000 and 4,000 rural folk from all over the country. Members of a single craft group often live in the same community. Others belong to the same hill tribe or another ethnic minority in a larger area.

For example, women in the village of Ban Chang, east of Bangkok, apply their skills in batik and silk weaving to make sheets and pillow cases. Smiths in Aranyik, a village in the central plains, make high-grade stainless steel dining utensils. Hundreds of years ago, they supplied weapons to the Siamese court. On any given fair day, members of about fifty groups will be on hand with their wares.

Quality is export standard—yet a product typically sells for four to five times less than it would in a store in North America or Europe. A pair of dangling silver earrings made by the Karen or Mien tribal people of northern Thailand costs about US $5. A large two-piece woven bamboo box that could store a mass of desk clutter is about $10.

Safe Workplace, Sustainable Environment

ThaiCraft started off as an all-volunteer association in 1992. Although it still relies on volunteers, today it’s a bona fide company, ThaiCraft FairTrade, with 14 staff. All are Thai, except for manager Stephen Salmon, who was one of the original volunteers. Its aim remains the same: to assist craft groups in marketing, learning about buyers’ tastes, and making products sustainably. “We have to make sure there are good, safe working conditions and that the environment is taken care of,” Salmon says.

Members of each group decide for themselves what is a fair price and thus an adequate daily wage. That might be only a few US dollars per day. By way of comparison, factory workers in the Bangkok area, where the cost of living is much higher than in rural provinces, earn about $5 per day. Unlike coffee and some other commodities, there is not yet any fair trade label for crafts, although ThaiCraft and other members of the World Fair Trade Association are working on it.

Tours of Artisan Villages

Until a few years ago, about half the products were exported. But Salmon says that percentage is steadily declining. There’s no mystery why: Thailand is a relatively rich Asian country and workers in India, China and Cambodia can make crafts for much less. In overseas shops, Thai-made crafts can’t compete. One solution may be to open a shop in Thailand or to shift to goods that appeal to more Thai customers, Salmon says. Domestic customers now are mostly expatriates.

A sister social enterprise, Phu Phiang, is a fair trade tour company that benefits workers in another way. It arranges itineraries, from a few days up to two weeks, in which small groups visit artisans at work in their home villages. Tours can be arranged through Phu Phiang's website.

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