Textile and garment industries, as well as leather and footwear, recorded high growth in production and exports during the first five months of this year.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade reported on June 1 that in the first five months of this year, the textile and garment industry produced 118.2 million sq.m. of natural fibre (a year-on-year increase of 2.3 percent), 287.1 million sq.m. of synthetic and artificial fibre (a year-on-year surge of 1.8 percent), and 1.21 billion units of cloths (a year-on-year surge of 2.3 percent).

During the first five months, the industry gained a year-on-year increase of 8.4 percent in export value to 8.11 billion USD, including 1.65 billion USD recorded in May.

The export orders of textile and garment enterprises remained positive in the second quarter, with 62 percent of total enterprises producing cloths marking an increase in export orders against the first quarter, the ministry noted.

The Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association said from early this year until now, foreign investors had been promoting investments in the textile and garment sector in Vietnam to exploit the business opportunities that have emerged following free trade agreements such as the TPP, Vietnam-EU FTA, and Vietnam-Republic of Korea FTA. According to the FTAs, Vietnam's textile and garment sector will gain the most from many tariff lines reducing to zero.

The ministry pointed out that the leather and footwear industries also achieved a year-on-year increase of 24.8 percent in output to 130.7 million pairs of footwear and of 19.5 percent rise in the export value of footwear to 4.6 million USD.

The General Statistics Office reported that some 55.7 percent of footwear enterprises recorded a surge in export orders for the second quarter.

According to the ministry, garment and footwear are two of the sectors that are expected to receive many advantages from the FTA in the future.-VNA