The Vietnam Institute for Applied Arts opened in Ho Chi Minh City, offering courses in graphic design, interior decoration, fashion design and more subjects.

Director Tran Ngoc Danh said the institute will take in about 100 and 1,000 students for long-term courses of two to four years, and short-term ones of three to six months, respectively.

Experts say that applied arts, which deals with the application of design and decoration to everyday objects to make them aesthetically pleasing, has played an increasingly important role in Vietnam over the last 50 years.

There are 37 schools in Vietnam teaching applied arts at present.-VNA