The wolves are coming! Many textile and garment factories in Vietnam have received full-year orders.

Release time:

2019-06-24

6000 textile and garment enterprises account for 15% of Vietnam's total exports, making Vietnam's textile and garment industry one of Vietnam's leading economic industries and one of the three major textile and garment exporting countries. In particular, free trade agreements (FTAs) are expected to be a boost to Vietnam's textile and apparel exports.

Vu Dejiang, chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (Vitas), said that Vietnam has participated in 16 free trade agreements, 12 of which have been successfully signed and officially entered into force, helping to promote export value. Textile and clothing is one of the industries that benefit from it.

Free trade agreements play an important role in the growth of textile and clothing exports. Specifically, the "Vietnam-South Korea Free Trade Agreement" came into effect in 2015. By 2016, Vietnam's textile and clothing exports to South Korea reached US $2.9 billion billion, an increase of 11.8 percent year-on-year. In 2018, the figure reached US $3.3 billion billion, an increase of 24.9 percent year-on-year.

The Free Trade Agreement between Vietnam and the Eurasian Economic Union, which came into effect in October 2016, increased Vietnam's textile and apparel exports to Russia from US $84.8 million in 2015 to US $0.172 billion in 2017 and US $0.18 billion in 2018.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam, in the first five months of 2019, textiles and clothing maintained growth momentum, with exports reaching US $12.061 billion billion, an increase of 10.3 percent over the same period last year. It is worth noting that key markets such as the United States, the European Union, South Korea, China, ASEAN, and the parties to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) have all achieved substantial growth.

Mr. Wu Dejiang said that from now to the end of the year, Vietnam's textile and clothing exports will maintain a good growth momentum, with an export value of about US $160-18 billion. At present, many companies have accepted orders throughout the year. It can be seen that the total export volume of textiles and clothing for the whole year can reach 40 billion US dollars.

Wu Dejiang, chairman of the Vietnam Textile Association, said that the reason why Vietnam's textile and clothing industry needs to increase imports is because some places do not support the development of the textile and clothing industry, especially the bleaching and dyeing chemical industry.

Mr. Wu Dejiang put forward three suggestions, including vigorously developing the domestic cloth industry and rapidly building industrial zones for investment in the textile and dyeing industries; the Ministry of Industry and Trade must become a pillar of the textile and clothing auxiliary industry; and promoting legal transparency.

Only in this way can the textile and clothing industry quickly get rid of its dependence on imports, rapidly increase the added value of exports, and make full use of the benefits of various free trade agreements.