The upcoming signing of a raft of free trade agreements, both bilateral and multilateral, between Vietnam and other nations and organisations will have a positive impact on the performance of the local textile and garment industry, the Vietnam Investment Review (VIR) says.
Accordingly, since late 2014 the sector’s major players such as Phong Phu, Nha Be, Thai Nguyen and Hung Yen garment companies said they had already signed export orders lasting through most or all of the year.
Chairman of Hung Yen Garment Nguyen Xuan Duong was quoted as saying export orders are not a concern for the company as it had already signed export contracts with major customers through the end of the third quarter.
Last year Hung Yen Garment eyed a 16 percent hike in total export value to 350 million USD, and now expects even better results this year thanks to more favourable export conditions.
Another industry leader, Ho Chi Minh City-based Nha Be Garment Corporation (NBC) revealed that is had signed export orders through the end of the year.
"Our main target this year aims to boost productivity while improving quality to achieve the best possible efficiency," NBC Deputy General Director Nguyen Ngoc Lan was cited as saying.
According to Deputy Chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (Vitas) Le Tien Truong, the sector’s high export value of 24.5 billion USD (up 19 percent on-year) in 2014 was the result of constant endeavours by businesses in the sector, and also from benefits of Vietnam’s free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with the EU, the Republic of Korea and the Customs Union as well as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Though these FTAs have yet to take effect, they have already motivated positive results with Vietnamese producers focusing their deal-making on countries involved in these agreements.
Consequently, Vietnam witnessed double-digit growth in its textile and garment export value to major markets last year.
Exports to the US were valued at nearly 9.8 billion USD, Japan 2.7 billion USD and the Republic of Korea 2 billion USD.
This also sets a premise for the textile and garment sector to see continued strong growth this year.
Accordingly, the textile and garment sector aims to achieve an export value of 28-28.5 billion USD this year, with exports to the US market hopefully surpassing 10 billion USD.-VNA
