Container and warehouse shortages and surging container shipping costs have hit the textile and garment industry hard, insiders told a seminar in Ho Chi Minh City.
Export revenue of the garment and textile sector surged 21.2 percent year on year in the first five months of 2021 to about 15.2 billion USD, according to the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS).
The target of Vietnam earning 39 billion USD from garment and textile exports in 2021 is perfectly feasible, Vu Duc Giang, Chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS), has said.
Vietnam’s textile and garment exports is set to fall 15 percent to 34 billion USD this year, the first drop in 25 years, over Covid-19 impacts. With the Covid-19 situation remains serious in the U.S. and some European countries, exports to these markets will continue to face difficulties due to a shortage of orders, the Ministry of Industry and Trade said in a recent report.
Vietnam’s textiles enjoying preferential export tariff to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) are likely to surpass the trigger level which results in the application of a safeguard measure cited in the Vietnam-EAEU Free Trade Agreement (VN-EAEU FTA), the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has warned.
Cambodia earned 3.7 billion USD from the export of garment products, including clothes, footwear, and travel goods –in the first half of this year, down 5 percent compared to the same period last year, according to Cambodian news agency AKP.
Vietnam's garment and textile exports in the first four months fell 10 percent year-on-year to 10.63 billion USD and could fall much further as buyers cancelled orders due to COVID-19, according to the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (Vitas).
Foreign direct investment inflows into Vietnam’s textile and garment industry mounted to 19.5 billion USD over the last three decades with the Republic of Korea (RoK) being the top investor.
Vietnam’s textile industry faces many difficulties with both export and production on the decrease due to effects of an intensified China-US trade war, said industry experts.
The Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS) said the total export value of textiles, fiber, and cloth reached 25.7 billion USD in the first eight months of the year, up 8.6 percent year on year, including 60.6 percent from foreign direct investment (FDI) enterprises.
Only by developing high quality and excellent designs could Vietnamese garment and textile firms boost their exports to Japan, a market that holds strict standards for imported products, according to the insiders.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) officially launched an electronic certificate of eligibility (C/E) issuance system for garment and textile exports to Mexico on June 20.
Local producers have been able to ensure material supply for denim production, with localization rate in denim trousers reaching 55 – 60 percent, said Vice General Secretary of Vietnam Textile & Apparel Association (VITAS) Nguyen Thi Tuyet Mai.
A delegation of business executives representing 30 Indian companies led by the chairman of the Indian Silk Export Promotion Council met their Vietnamese counterparts at the Buyer-Seller meet held in Ho Chi Minh City on May 21.
The garment-textile sector has grossed over 36 billion USD in export turnover this year, up 16.01 percent against the previous year, heard a conference in Hanoi on December 14.
Though Vietnam remains a big importer of textile feedstock and accessories from China, its rising exports to China is a promising sign, according to the Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group.