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Garment industry: Biggest problem lies in material supply
Though a big export turnover earner, the garment industry is still considered as having low competitiveness and low added value. This stems from problems in the supply of materials for making garment products.
A lot of domestic garment producers complain that it is very difficult to find materials for garment production, saying it is verily ‘seeking a needle at the bottom of the sea’.
Materials, where?
N.T, Director of P fashion brand name, has decided to return a consignment of fabric big enough to make 1,000 pairs of trousers to a domestic fabric producer because the fabric does not have the quality claimed by the producer.
“Our technical workers found out that the fabric is darker in some places and lighter-coloured elsewhere,” she said.
In fact, T’s company rarely purchases fabric from domestic producers. Having 20 year experience, T well knows that the quality of domestically-made fabric is not constant, and products often have different problems in different orders.
Nguyen Huu Phung, Chairman of Viet Fashion Company in HCM City, also said that he cannot rely on domestic fabric because of unstable supply and quality.
Phung related that his company sometimes has to sell products at below production cost because of the low quality of domestically-made fabric.
Meanwhile, in their production plans, a lot of garment material producers only target providing materials for garment exporters, while they have not paid attention to providing materials for producers making products for domestic consumption.
S., General Director of N Fashion Company, said domestic producers now can provide only several kinds of fabric, while the fashion industry needs diversified materials.
S also pointed out that the prices of domestically-made materials are always 5 percent higher than imports, while supply sources and quality remain unstable.
It’s necessary to change way of thinking
It is estimated that 90 percent of materials needed for garment production are imported from China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan. Despite a lot of policies on developing the production of materials for the garment industry, Vietnam is still relying on material imports.
Le Trung Hai, Deputy General Director of the Vietnam Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex), admitted that it will cost several tens of millions of dollars to make finished fabric, which is really a heavy investment.
An enterprise specialising in importing fabric said that the problem comes from the way material producers make investment in production equipment. If the enterprise orders fabric with Thai producers, it can order 5,000 metres for a kind of product and 1,000 metres for a colour. Meanwhile, if it places orders with domestic fabric producers, it has to order 10,000 and 2,000 metres, respectively.
Insiders said that in order settle the problem, it is necessary to offer very attractive incentives to those enterprises who are brave enough to make investment in the tough phases of fabric production. Moreover, it is necessary to change their way of thinking: garment material producers do not have to use big capacity machines. They can get ready to provide small volumes of materials to fulfill small orders, while they need to keep an eye on quality and offer stable supplies.
vietnamnet, tt
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