Spain’s Jeanologia and its Vietnamese partner Phong Phu International Joint Stock Company have an ambitious plan to transform Vietnam into a global market leader in the production of high-quality environmentally friendly jeans, radio The Voice of Vietnam (VOV) reported.

Enrique Silla, President of Jeanologia- a Spain jean producer has said that Vietnamese products, especially jeans and knitted items, are finding their niche in the global marketplace and are emerging as a strong competitive rival in terms of price and quality.

Silla said that recent policy changes in China – currently the world’s largest jeans producer – have lessened the attractiveness of the Chinese market to the favour of investment in the Vietnamese garment and textile industry.

He emphasised that the time is ripe for garment producers in the Vietnam to seize the opportunity to ascend to a position of global leadership in the production of high-quality jeans.

To achieve the goal, he suggested that in addition to capitalising on factors such as of its young talented labour force, Vietnam should focus on modernising its production technologies to improve product quality and most importantly increase added value of production.

“World famous jeans producers such as Levis Strauss or retailers UNIQLO, Zara, H & M, G STAR, A & F, Polo Jeans or CK have taken notice of Vietnam’s emergence in the industry and are keeping tabs on the development,” he concluded. 

In 2013, Vietnam's textile and garment industry gained 20 billion USD in export value. That represents a year-on-year increase of 18.6 percent to reach 17.9 billion USD for textile and garment exports and a 15.7 percent surge to reach 2.1 billion USD for fibre products. The industry boasted a trade surplus of 5.12 billion USD last year, with imports of raw materials estimated at 14.88 billion USD.

This year, the textile and garment industry firms have started large projects to expand their production and earn new business opportunities.-VNA