YANGON-BASED rattan furniture maker Golden Galon Co., Ltd has won a Seal of Excellence in Handicraft from world cultural body UNESCO for a coffee table the company exports.

Golden Galon was among 23 of the 71 Southeast Asian entrants rewarded by the UN body’s program aimed at encouraging craftworkers to use traditional skills and materials.

“Each craft is reviewed according to excellence, authenticity, innovation, eco-friendliness, and marketability,” said Richard Engelhardt, regional advisor for Culture in Asia and the Pacific at UNESCO’s Bangkok headquarters.

“These standards ensure the highest level of craft excellence and distinguish a product as a benchmark for craft production,” he added before the awards were announced in Bangkok earlier this month.

“This is a first for our company,” Golden Galon director U Sonny Aung Khin said.

“We only entered with one item called the ‘Drum’ coffee table in the competition, which costs US$20 to take part in.

“The competition rules stated that products had to be made of locally produced materials and handmade with a traditional Myanmar design,” he said, adding the company expected to receive a certificate from UNESCO by the end of October recognising their effort.

The certificate would help the company’s exports
by convincing customers of their products’ quality, U Sonny Aung Khin said.
The award-winning coffee table is made with a bamboo and rattan base with a round teakwood top.

The tables can be bought at the Meemosa Furniture Boutique in the Grand Mee Ya Hta serviced apartments complex for US$150 each.

Most of the company’s exports are to England and France, where it has been selling its furniture and rattan accessories since 2002.

“In our exports to Marseilles (France), we compete with Vietnam and Indonesia. We’ve got about 20 percent market share (for rattan furniture) in France and about 10pc in London,” U Sonny Aung Khin said.