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Textile chief calls for lowered export targets
The apparel industry’s export targets for this year should be adjusted downward, given the difficulties in the global market, the chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Garment Association, Le Quoc An said.
The target should be lowered to $9.3-9.5 billion from US$10-10.5 billion because of the continuing downturn in Viet Nam’s key textile export markets, he said.
The US, for instance, accounted for a 55 per cent share of Viet Nam’s apparel exports last year, but shipments to the market in the first half of this year fell by more than 5 per cent.
The Viet Nam Trade Promotion Agency had called for undertaking trade promotion programmes to support textile exporters since the first quarter but getting them up and running was a complicated and time-consuming task, he said.
Several promotions were set to get under way around July 15, but they would come too late for enterprises to benefit this year, he said.
The economic downturn had already pushed exports down.
Many small textile firms had not received a single order since the beginning of the year, An said, while large ones had suffered a shortage of manpower despite having orders because the salary they paid were not enough to retain workers.
Fixing the problems
To overcome the manpower shortage, companies should move their production bases to residential and rural areas, where they could find workers more easily, he said.
The textile industry is small, continues to use obsolete machinery and technologies, and suffers from poor management, thus failing to meet the needs of importers, according to An.
It needs to change its operation model to increase labour productivity, and a comprehensive restructuring of businesses in the sector will help industry-wide growth.
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