Feature: Myanmar's handmade lantern market sees low demand amid commodity price hike

Yangon (Myanmar), October 9: With Myanmar's lighting festival around the corner, lantern makers in Yangon are seeing low demand for their products compared to previous years.
"The sales of decorative lanterns decreased this season," said Nyein Chan, who has been making and selling lanterns during the annual season since he was a child, referring to the lighting festival which falls in mid-October.
While waiting for customers at his shop at Yangon's Kyimyindaing lantern market, the 34-year-old lantern maker said that his colorful hand-made products have attracted passers-by as the festival is drawing near.
However, this year's sales declined due to higher commodity prices, including higher prices of raw materials for making lanterns.
The prices of all commodities, especially imported ones, significantly rose compared to last year's prices, as the Myanmar currency Kyat devalued about 28 percent against the U.S. dollar over the year, data showed.
"As lanterns are not essential things like food, clothing and shelter, ordinary people no longer buy lanterns this year as they were struggling to make ends meet amid rising food prices," said Nyein Chan.
Although the prices of raw materials were higher, lantern makers do not raise the prices of lanterns this year, said Thanda Oo, a lantern maker. "We keep making and selling lanterns to preserve the business inherited from my ancestors."
Using bamboo as one of the main raw materials, Myanmar's traditional handmade lanterns come in different types and designs. Basically, bamboos are trimmed and molded into selected shapes.
"Imported lanterns came into the Myanmar market some years ago, but most people are still picking locally-produced handmade lanterns," Thanda Oo said, "It is a great encouragement for us."
Choosing designs of hanging lanterns at a shop, Eaint Hmu Khin, a 28-year-old company staff, told Xinhua that she has come to the bazaar to buy hanging lanterns for office decoration.
"Local handmade lanterns are more traditional, and more suitable with Myanmar's traditional Thadingyut lighting festival," she said, "Therefore, we chose to buy local handmade lanterns."
U Tun, a 60-year-old man who was strolling in the lantern market together with his grandchild, decided to buy a toy lantern for his grandchild instead of hanging lanterns this year.
Toy lanterns play as a market booster, targeting children. They are made into rabbit, rooster, fish, peacock, airplanes, buses and other shapes with colorful papers.
Myanmar's traditional Thadingyut lighting festival will start from Sunday to Tuesday this year. The lighting festival is Myanmar's second popular festival after the traditional Thingyan water festival.
During the lighting festival, Buddhists hang lanterns at homes, workplaces and streets for decoration, and children play with toy lanterns in the streets.
Source: Myanmar