Vietnamese Textile Brands Face Stiff Competition On Home Turf

Industry news

Vietnamese Textile Brands Face Stiff Competition On Home Turf

Vietnam is facing a jinx situation because of world famous fashion brands consistently hiking their presence in their domestic market. This has created a situation in which Vietnam garment manufacturers have to compete hard in the domestic market. In short, the domestic market is an uneven turf for Vietnamese textile manufacturers. In the export market, Vietnam has been doing exceedingly well with a 5% to 10% hike in revenues for two consecutive years. Their goods have been available in the market shelves of 200 countries. Their exports were valued at USD 36 billion in the previous year. Percentage wise it’s a 16.1 % rise on 2017 season. Vietnam has performed very well in the textile export sector but has been lagging behind on its home turf. Vu Duc Giang, chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS), said in a press statement, “Despite several barriers from large markets, garments and textiles industry was extremely successful in export last year but it faced difficulties in domestic market. Growth of garment products of large producers in domestic market was extremely low with some even much lower than their set targets.” Giang further informed the press, “When free trade agreements become effective, import tariffs reduce and retail market is opened for foreign enterprises, several foreign fashion brands including Zara, H&M, Topshop and Old Navy have landed in domestic market and directly competed with Vietnamese ones. Meanwhile, local fashion industry has not actually kept pace with global fashion trend yet. Fashion designers and firms still have to do things on their own as there is no school for training of professional fashion designers.” Of late, there are campaigns requesting locals in Vietnam to purchase Vietnamese textile goods. Despite this move, the consumers prefer to purchase imported brands of garments and apparels.