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More orders coming to garment companies
The most difficult period for the garment industry has passed as more and more orders are coming in.
According to the Industry and Trade Centre Information Centre under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, with more optimism regarding exports of garments to the US, garment material importers have bravely begun placing orders for the last two quarters of the year.
Garment companies in HCM City said that the number of orders has increased by 15-20 percent over the beginning of the year. To date, most enterprises have got orders at least enough to create jobs until October 2009.
Traditional markets: Thorny road to the US, smooth way to EU
According to the US customs, Vietnamese garments exported to the US in the first quarter of 2009 accounted for 4.74 percent of total garment import turnover of the US (up by 3.4 percent over the first quarter of 2008). The US now is continuing to place orders with Vietnamese garment producers.
However, a new rival of Vietnam’s garment companies has appeared as garment products from the Philippines exported to the US will be exempted from import tax if the fabric of the garment products is sourced from the US or the Philippines. As such, Vietnam-made apparel products may have higher prices than Filipino products in the US market.
Vietnamese garments exported to the EU have been going more smoothly than those exported to the US. According to the Industry and Trade Information Centre, after many periods (15 days per period) of maintaining the fairly high export turnover of over $50 million, the turnover of the latest period (15 first days of July 2009) was $83.5 million, a sharp increase of 61 percent over the previous period.
However, Vietnam’s garment market share remains low in the EU. The latest statistics released by Eurostat showed that Vietnam’s garment products just account for 2.06 percent of the EU’s total imports in the first quarter of 2009, much lower than China’s (44.1 percent), Turkey’s (11.65 percent), Bangladesh (8.56 percent) and India (8.49 percent).
Previously, consumers in the EU mainly purchased garment products in two main seasons, winter and summer. Meanwhile, they now tend to purchase products more regularly over the course of a year. Therefore, importers now tend to place small- and medium-size orders instead of big orders at very low prices like they once did with Chinese exporters.
This is really goods news for Vietnamese garment producers, who have advantages in fulfilling small orders.
New markets bring new opportunities
Sudan now consumes 55 percent of Vietnam’s total garment export turnover from Africa. The only product the country imports is mosquito nets, with 1.5 million nets in the last period. This product seeing good business from Angola, with 425,000 nets sold at $2.12 per net.
As for the Middle East, in the last period of June 2009 (June 15-July 3), the export turnover from the market reached $26.22 million, an increase of 35 percent over the last period of June 2009. The product which saw the sharp turnover increase was apparel, increasing two-fold, reaching $6.3 million in turnover. The Middle East likes Vietnamese cotton clothes and medium-class apparel products are selling well in the market.
vietnamnet, sgtt
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