Vietnam’s Textile Industry Aims At 7% Export Growth, To Touch US$ 30 Billion This Year

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Vietnam’s Textile Industry Aims At 7% Export Growth, To Touch US$ 30 Billion This Year

Vietnam’s National Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex) Director General Le Tien Truong has announced that the nation’s textile industry has targeted an export growth of 6.5% to 7%, in order to touch US$30 billion this year.

He said that development of the textile and garment market at home and abroad would continue improving due to growth in the US economy. Such conditions would support the domestic textile and garment industry in reaching their target in export values this year, he said.

“To reach this target, the industry needs strong performance by enterprises in production and business, and of the state in management by supporting the industry’s development, as well as development of infrastructure in the nation,” he said.

Vietnamese enterprises should improve productivity, reduce time needed to deliver cargo as well as strengthen distribution systems to international markets, he said.

Outlining the Vietnamese textile industry’s challenges, he said that several important trade deals, such as the EU-Vietnam free trade agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership will not become effective in 2017.

He said that instability in the EU would affect Vietnam, even as competition would increase as other countries continue to attract orders due to their tax and exchange advantages.

During this year, the nation’s textile and garment industry would have to prepare to take advantage of business from Vietnam-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which comes into effect in 2018, he said.

He said that once the FTA is in place, Vietnam would be able compete with other countries like Cambodia, Bangladesh as well as Myanmar to export garments to the EU through the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP), which allows developing countries to pay less or no duty on some exports to the EU.

Highlighting figures, he said that Vietnam’s apparel industry saw lower than expected results, with US $28.3 billion in exports, up by 5.7% on a year-on-year basis.

He said that Vinatex earned more than US$2.5 billion, which is an increase of 5% over 2015, with a pre-tax profit of over Vietnamese Dong 41 trillion on a 5% increase on a year-on-year basis. The organisation’s employees’ average income rose by 8% over the previous year to reach Vietnamese Dong 6.7 million per month, he said.

He said that last year was gloomy for the global apparel sector, since major importers nations including the US, the EU as well as Japan experienced low or decreased demand for garment and textile products.

Despite this factor, figures showed that Vietnam had recorded higher growth than major competitors like China, India, Bangladesh and Indonesia, he said.