Garment exports reach $3.4bil in first half

Textile and garment exports reached US$680mil in June, lifting the industry’s total earnings in the first six months of the year to $3.4bil, according to the Viet Nam Textile and Apparel Association (Vitas).
Though the six-month figure was up 25.9% over the same period last year, it met only 47% of the industry’s annual export target of $7bil, Vitas said.

Vitas attributed the slightly disappointing result to US monitoring of garment imports from Vietnam. The US Department of Commerce (DoC) began monitoring imports of textile and apparel products after Vietnam joined the WTO in January and quotas were lifted.
The DOC is expected to announced the results of its first biannual review in August.
Meanwhile, Vitas explained, many US companies have postponed new contracts with Vietnamese textile and garment exporters for fear of dumping actions by the DOC or US garment makers.

Vitas’s statistics showed that textile and garment exports to the US market in June rose only 30% year-on-year, while the figure was often much higher in previous years.

To deal with the reduction in orders from US importers, Vitas chairman Le Quoc An said Vitas was taking several courses of action to prevent further cancellations of orders from US businesses.

"We have appealed to the US Government to stop applying the monitoring system on Vietnamese garments and have requested international organisations to lobby on our behalf. The association has also met with US businesses to persuade them to continue importing our products."

An said the association has also requested Vietnamese businesses to make their accounts clear and transparent in line with international regulations, and to limit low-price exports to the US market.

Vitas also recommended its members expand their exports to other markets and make direct sales to overseas markets instead of acting as a sub-contractor as currently.

The Association of Garment and Textile Embroidery and Knitting (Agtex) recently asked the Government to set up a national fashion centre designed to support the nation’s garment industry in designing products and building trademarks, said Agtex vice chairman Diep Thanh Kiet.

Thanks to efforts in building trademarks and design, domestic textile and garment producers including Viet Tien have made significant successes in directly exporting their products to overseas markets.

Following successes in Australia and New Zealand, Viet Tien is working with partners to distribute products bearing its Vee Sendy mark to the US, Malaysia, Singapore and Canada.
Some domestic garment makers expected to increase their shipments to the EU market thanks to a trade promotion programme planned by the Holland Centre on Import Promotion from Developing Countries, according to the Trade Promotion Agency under the Ministry of Trade.
According to the agency, the programme would give domestic textile producers opportunities to receive consultation and training from foreign experts as well as have timely access to EU market information.

Participants might also receive foreign support to improve their products, management, marketing and market penetration.

To qualify for the programme, domestic textile firms would be required not to join with foreign partners from developed countries and have at least 51% of capital owned by Vietnamese. The rules were designed to ensure benefits of the programme don’t flow to foreign-controlled joint ventures.

Quality, price and production capacity would also have to be in line with EU market demands and firms selected for the programme would be required to comply with EU standards.

Source: VNE