Garment products are made at a factory in the central province of Thua Thien Hue (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – Vietnam's garment and textile exports in the first fourmonths fell 10 percent year-on-year to 10.63 billion USD and could fall muchfurther as buyers cancelled orders due to COVID-19, according to theVietnam Textile and Apparel Association (Vitas).
In April alone, exports ofVietnamese garment and textile products saw a month-on-month decline of 20 percentto 2.3 billion USD, the association's statistics revealed.
Truong Van Cam, deputy chairmanof Vitas, said these figures are anticipated to fall much further inMay and June due to the majority of export orders being cancelled or delayed.
According to the VietnamNational Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex), the domestic textile and garmentindustry could lose up to 50 percent of orders in May. Meanwhile, the recoveryof supply amid falling demand might lead to a 20 percent reduction in prices worldwide,it said.
The group also predicted thattextile and garment exports will rebound in the third and fourth quarters withlow-cost products accounting for the lion's share of turnover.
However, the nation’s 2020apparel exports could decrease by 20 percent over the previous year because ofa drop of between 20-25 percent is expected in global, said Vinatex’s generaldirector Le Tien Truong.
Truong said it is the righttime for textile and garment producers to source raw materials from countriesthat were part of the Vietnam- EU Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) so that theirproducts could meet the EVFTA’s “rules of origin” requirements and benefitfrom the tax reductions.
The firms should also hunt forsmall-scale orders with higher quality requirements, he said.
For Vinatex, in the secondquarter, the group will continue to produce face masks and medical protectiveclothes to meet the high demand for these products in many foreign marketswhile ensuring stable operations to catch up with the customers’demands once the market showed signs of recovery.
Last year, Vietnam earned 39billion USD from textile and garment exports, up 7.6 percent year-on-year,according to Vitas.
The US remained the largestconsumer of Vietnamese apparel products with 12.5 billion USD, up 9 percentyear-on-year and accounting for 39 percent of total export turnover.
The EU was next with 4.4billion USD, up 2 percent or equivalent to 11.3 percent of the total. China andJapan followed with 4.25 billion USD and 4.2 billion USD, up 7 percent and 4.4percent, respectively./.
