The garment and textile sector maintains its top position in terms of export revenue in November with 1.3 billion USD, according to the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (Vitas).

The November earning brought the total garment and textile export revenues in the January-November period to almost 13.8 billion USD, up 8.2 percent year-on-year. However, 2012 continues to be a difficult year for the garment and textile sector due to narrowing market and rising input costs.

From experts’ view, the world economic crisis has resulted in dropping orders for Vietnam ’s textile and garment products from traditional markets, particularly the EU. The devaluation of the euro against US dollar also affects Vietnamese garment makers, who must pay for materials imports from other regions, such as China and Thailand , in US dollars.

Therefore, to fulfill their export target in 2012, many textile and garments makers have worked hard to seek new customers outside the EU, for example Japan, the US, and Republic of Korea ( RoK).

At the same time, the sector has tried to increase the export of products of high value such as suits, shirts and pants, as well as fiber export to China , Turkey , and Africa . Vitas also encourages its members to invest in several projects to produce materials and accessories with a view to easing their independence on imports.

In addition, the association helps the manufactures to build distribution networks and trademarks. Furthermore, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has deployed trade promotion programmes while revising regulations to help the sector boost export in the last month of the year./.VNA