Ceramic producers expect few profits but hope to break even financially so they can continue to employ their staff.
Most small-sized pottery producers have stopped operating, according to the Dong Nai Art Pottery Association.
Up to 70 per cent of pottery and ceramics producers have no work for employees because of a drop in export orders, according to the association.
For the last few months of 2011, Phong Son Pottery Pte, which specialises in producing many kinds of pottery and ceramics for home and garden decoration, exported about three containers to the EU and US a month.
But in the first quarter of this year, it shipped only three containers, and in April, none.
Chairman of the association, said the ceramics sector had recovered last year as pottery producers had received more export contacts than in previous years.
But since the middle of the first quarter of this year, the number of export orders dropped dramatically.
“I have never seen the pottery and ceramics sector facing such difficulty,” he said.
Problems are expected to continue to the end of the third quarter of this year.
However, the economy of the EU and US is predicted to be better in the fourth quarter.
Most pottery and ceramics producers in Dong Nai Province, one of the country’s leading provinces in pottery and ceramics exports, are located in Bien Hoa City.