Garment products continued to lead Vietnam’s export staples, bringing home 11.7 billion USD in the first ten months of 2011, an increase of 29.4 percent over the same period last year.

According to insiders, together with stable and high-value orders, the trend of shifting garment supply markets from Eastern Europe to Asia countries, including Vietnam, has created conditions for the garment sector to significantly increase exports.

Statistics from the General Department of Customs showed that garment export growth was seen in almost all markets and especially the US, which imported nearly 5.2 billion USD worth of Vietnamese garment products in the first nine months of this year, up 15.2 percent year-on-year.

Vietnam’s garment exports to the EU and Japan reached 1.92 billion USD and 1.22 billion USD, respectively, marking impressive increases of 43.7 percent and 52.8 percent.

Taking advantage of tax reductions under the Free Trade Agreement between the Republic of Korea (RoK) and ASEAN, Vietnam earned 631 million USD from garment exports to the RoK in the nine-month period, a 2.4 fold rise over the same period last year.

Exports to these markets accounted for nearly 20 percent of the whole sector’s total export turnover, compared to 10 percent in previous years.

With these positive developments, Vietnam’s garment export turnover is forecast to reach 13.7 billion USD this year, representing a year-on-year increase of 20.5 percent and exceeding the early target by 500 million USD./.