Vietnam sees enormous potentials it could reap from its abundant workforce, cheap labour prices, large markets, and upcoming accession to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement, the Government news portal said on May 7.

Garments and textiles is one of the earliest members of the 1 billion USD earners' club in 1995 (after crude oil), earning over 2 billion USD in 2003 and more than 17 billion USD in 2013.

Export volume of the commodity recorded 251 times higher in 2013 against 1986 and surged by 21.8 percent yearly.

So far, made-in-Viet Nam garments and textiles are available in over 100 countries and territories in which around 50 foreign markets got over 10 million USD in export turnover and 16 others with over 100 million USD. Especially, ten foreign markets earned over 200 million USD in export turnover.

The ten biggest export markets occupied 86.3 percent of the country’s total export turnover in the field with nearly 15.5 billion USD.

The US made up 48 percent of the export market, followed by Japan with 13.3 percent and the Republic of Korea with 9.1 percent.

In the first four months of 2014, shipments of Vietnamese garments and textiles picked up 20 percent, higher than the average growth rate of the country’s export turnover.

The country is likely to set a new record in 2014 with a 20 billion USD revenue from the product.

Garments and textiles accounted for 13.6 percent of total export turnover, only left by telephones and spare parts (with 16.1 percent).

Around 7,000 enterprises, hundreds of thousands of economic establishments, household production sites are engaging in the production. The sector generates over 1.2 million of jobs. The domestic companies held 40.4 percent of the market share, while the FDI ones, 59.6 percent.

Last year, Vietnamese garments and textiles shipped to 11 TPP economies touched over 11 billion USD, accounting for 22.7 percent of Vietnam’s total export volume to TPP. Once Vietnam joins TPP, Vietnamese garments and textiles will benefit from preferential export tariffs.

However, the sector is still coping with a series of obstacles including poor auxiliary industry and heavy reliance on foreign raw materials.

In addition, low competitiveness is another obstacle to the sector.-VNA