Design key to lifting garment exports

Quality and designs will be the determining factors in selling Vietnamese textile and garment products to Japan, a senior trade official has said.

Japanese standards for quality and design required Vietnamese businesses to modernise technologies and guarantee the safety of their products, Dao Quang Loi, former trade attache at the Vietnamese embassy in Tokyo, further said.

Speaking at a seminar on exporting apparel to Japan held in Ha Noi on Tuesday, Loi said Japanese had rigorous standards, especially with regard to safety and sanitation of children’s wear.

Unlike the US and European markets which often placed big orders, the sophisticated Japanese market bought small quantities of products in a range of designs and colours, he said.

This was because Japanese women prefer unique products while the market undergoes major seasonal changes, particularly in March-April during the Golden Week – comprising four holidays — and during Christmas and New Year.

Le Xuan Duong, director of the Export Supporting Centre, said Japan was one of Viet Nam’s biggest textile and garment importers, accounting for nearly 11 per cent of export revenues.

Last year there was a 20 per cent rise in exports to US$1.2 billion.

Duong said though the Viet Nam-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, which exempts Vietnamese apparel from taxes, took effect in 2009, many exporters had yet to understand its benefits.

Vietnamese businesses had also yet to meet the high standards Japan sets due to their lack of information and experience, he added.

A senior expert at the Japan International Co-operation Agency, Fumio Koyama, said Japan’s garment imports last year were worth $3.7 billion, with more than 90 per cent coming from China. The rest were from the EU, the US and some other countries.

Japanese garment importers had forged close ties with China over the last decade since China had an abundant supply of raw materials, was geographically close to Japan, had cheap labour costs, and many factory workers could speak Japanese, he said.

But labour costs had doubled in the last eight years to 960 yuan ($125) a month, he said, adding that a large Japanese producer was set to move all of its factories out of China in the next five years.

Japan has yet to decide on the replacement country but considers Viet Nam as the best due to its reasonable labour costs and similar working mindset to Japanese.

Labour costs in Viet Nam are less than half of those in China but slightly higher than those in Cambodia and Bangladesh, though the three countries face a shortage of raw materials.

The Janpanese experts said the big difference between China and Viet Nam was in the ability to source raw materials. While synthetic materials, cotton, yarn, fabric and other inputs were available all over China, it was only available in some parts of Viet Nam.

Japanese and Vietnamese experts said Viet Nam was yet to set up an agency responsible for monitoring product quality before being sold in the market, adding that checks were only made in factories.

Vietnamese businesses needed to focus on checking products carefully before delivery and improve foreign language skills, design and production technologies to compete with Chinese companies, they said.

If two companies make the same products in similar conditions, Japanese importers would prefer the one whose employees speak their language, they warned. — VNS

Tags: Vietnam garment exports, Vietnam Garment industry