Vietnam 's leather and footwear export value jumped by 30 percent to 4.8 billion USD during the first nine months of this year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

By September, the leather and footwear industry had reached a growth rate of 550-640 million USD per month over four consecutive months, the office said.

Growth was mainly due to the abolishment of an anti-dumping tax related to leather-upper shoes made in Vietnam from April on the European Union market, importers accordingly shifting their orders from China to Vietnam because of a 16.5 percent tax still applied in the former.

However, many domestic export leather and footwear producers have not yet dared to take orders because of high input costs and increased salaries, said Nguyen Thi Tong, general secretary of the Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association (Lefaso).

So far, producers have received enough export orders to last until the end of this year alongside contracts already negotiated for 2012, he said.

The industry expects to reach a total export value of 6 billion USD this year, Tong said, adding that, in order to reach the target, production lines would need to be expanded while product quality was enhanced.

To improve enterprise competitiveness, the domestic market would additionally need just as much attention as the export one, she said.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the industry has set up targeted export values of 9.1 billion USD for 2015, 14.5 billion USD for 2020 and 21 billion USD for 2025.

The industry expects to reach an average export value growth rate of 10.9 percent per year in 2011-15, 9.7 percent during 2016-20 and 9.7 percent from 2021-25./.