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Garment exporters sew up new markets
By switching their focus to Japan and new markets, domestic garment and textile manufacturers recently won many more export contracts last month, making it more likely export targets for this year would be met.
The Viet Nam Textile and Apparel Association (Vitas) now predicts that the textile and garment industry will increase its total export value by 1-2 per cent for this year compared with that of last year, said Le Quoc An, Vitas chairman. The sector would have to gain an increase of 6 per cent in total export value in the second half of this year to reach that level.
A number of Vietnamese garment and textile enterprises have won contracts to export their products till the end of this October, said Vitas, adding that orders from Japan increased sharply, making Japan the largest importer of Vietnamese garment products currently.
Vitas vice chairman Pham Xuan Hong said the sector’s largest market, the US, had shrunk so Vietnamese enterprises were exerting their efforts to find new outlets.
For Saigon 3 Garment Company, orders from Japan will account for 60 per cent of its total exports by the end of this year.
Viet Tien Garment Company has increased their export volume by 20 per cent this month in comparison with the last few months by focusing on high-quality garment products for the Japanese market, rather than for the US market, said a representative of the company.
Nam Dinh Garment JSC had enough export contracts to be carried out till the end of the first quarter in 2010. Other large textile and garment makers, including Viet Thang, Nha Be, Thang Loi and Phong Phu, had export contracts to do by the end of this year.
The Middle East is becoming a big market for Viet Nam’s cotton clothing, and Russia imports a high volume of children’s clothes, jeans and jackets, said Vitas, adding that export value to those new markets had recently increased and occupied about 5 per cent of the sector’s total export value.
The sector currently exports 33.3 per cent of its products to Japan, 26.5 per cent to EU countries, 23 per cent to the US and 17.2 to other markets.
A stitch in time
In order to meet the export targets, the sector must increase export contracts and enhance production in the second half of this year, An said.
Vitas would further increase trade promotion into Asian markets, he said.
Vitas expected the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) and the Trade Promotion Agency to support efforts towards carrying out a trade promotion programme to secure more export contracts in the third and fourth quarter.
For long-term development, investments are being made in materials for the textile and garment sector to increase the percentage of domestic inputs for export products, he said.
The association submitted a proposal to MoIT to build two more industrial complexes for textile and garment dyeing in northern Thai Binh Province and southern Tra Vinh Province.
The textile and garment industry also planned to apply more advanced technology in production, increase capacity of factories, transition to producing higher-quality products and increase salaries for workers, An said.
The export value of the textile and garment sector was $4 billion in the first half of this year, 4.7 per cent lower than the same period last year, Vitas said.
Earlier this year, the export value of the sector was predicted to reach only $9-9.1 billion for this year, due to the global financial crisis; this figure has been adjusted upwards to $9.5 billion, if the volume of export contracts remains stable in all existing export markets.
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