Secoin - The Traditional Tile Preserver

Encaustic cement tiles – the tiles associated with childhood memories of generations of Vietnamese people –  used to be forgotten, but now it comes back stronger in position of a favorite “high end” product. Secoin's customers in the world still call these "works of art", which are "hand-crafted" pictures by artisans. The spirit of tile has been captured from history, culture and art to create a peak value, an essence and true vitality of Vietnamese encaustic cement tiles and now spread throughout the world.

History of Cement tiles since 1910

In early 20th century, the first tile machines made in France were begun to move to Vietnam and served for the construction of the French in Indochina. The first encaustic tile factory was built in Saigon in 1910 by the Brossard et Mopin company. This was a famous French building company in Far East region with a series of major projects in Indochina, South China or Singapore. Brossard et Mopin has designed and constructed the Hang Co railway station (Hanoi, 1902) and especially the Ben Thanh Market (Saigon, 1914) - symbol of Saigon - Ho Chi Minh City nowadays.

Encaustic cement tiles of Brossard et Mopin were famous throughout Vietnam with E-shapedlogo operating across generations even after the French withdrawal from Vietnam in 1954. During the Republic of Vietnam (1955-1975) the company was purchased by a Vietnamese boss and renamed Thanh Danh.

After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, like many other private enterprises, Thanh Danh tiles were transformed to state-owned company and merged with the enterprises named Gach Bong So 1 (Encaustic cement tile company No.1), Nam Hung, Duc Thanh, Tan A, Co Bac to form Thanh Danh Tile State-owned Enterprise. By 1994, the enterprise was renamed as Thanh Danh Decorative Tile Company.

During the period, Thanh Danh was still famous encaustic cement brand and had the largest scale in Vietnam. However, in the year 1990s of the 20th century, due to the movement by switching to use ceramic tiles so that companies of Vietnam were weakened and closed. Thanh Danh was descending its scale to 2008; the factory was outages due to large debt.

At this point, Secoin - a leading non-burnt cement building material manufacturer as well as a  large encaustic cement manufacturer in Vietnam  had reached an agreement with the Ministry of Finance in Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee to take over Thanh Danh. Currently, Secoin owns Thanh Danh brand.

On 17/07/2009, Thanh Danh was officially handed over to Secoin for operating the factory. And since then, Secoin has gradually restored the production of Thanh Danh. A large number of skilled workers of Thanh Danh returned to the factory. At the same time, hundreds of workers from other places joined to work for the new tile brand - Secoin. The scale of Thanh Danh factory is currently expanding the production to 3 times higher than before.

Up to now, Secoin with 6 factories located across North - Central – South of Vietnam have become the world's largest scale encaustic cement manufacturer.

109 years of encaustic cement tile Brossard et Mopin - Thanh Danh - Secoin

2019 will be the 109-year anniversary of the first encaustic cement tile produced in Vietnam. Along with the ups and downs of the country's history, 109 years, of the leading encaustic cement tile in Vietnam: Brossard et Mopin - Thanh Danh - Secoin has become one of the symbol of the Vietnamese products are produced over many generations

There is an increasing honor and proud when Brossard et Mopin - Thanh Danh - Secoin recently has been in nearly 60 countries across 6 continents to preserve and promote the tradition of excellent products made from human hands.