Garment industry eyes $20b exports

The garment sector hopes to almost double exports to US$20 billion by 2020, a conference heard in HCM City yesterday.

Pham Gia Hung of the Viet Nam Textile and Apparel Association (Vitas) said the Viet Nam Garment and Textile Development Strategy also targeted increasing domestic consumption to $6 billion by then.

Exports were worth $11.2 billion last year and domestic sales, $4.2 billion.

Local content would account for 70 per cent in 2020, he said.

Last year, the industry imported $8.9 billion worth of cotton, fabric, fiber and accessories.

To increase local content, the industry planned to seek more investment in growing cotton and in facilities to manufacture fabric and accessories, Hung said.

He called on the industry to achieve a better balance between downstream (garment and terry towel) production capacity and upstream (cotton ginning and spinning) to reduce the imports.

To achieve the export and other targets, the association would also focus on exports of high-medium and high-end products and on training human resources in technology, fashion design, production management and fashion marketing.

It would set up production facilities in the areas where human resources were abundantly available and transportation was convenient besides opening textile and dyeing industrial zones in Da Nang and Nam Dinh, Thai Binh, Nghe An, Dong Nai and Tra Vinh provinces, Hung said.

He urged garment companies to ensure quality.

The recent acceleration in the shift in export orders from China to Viet Nam was a positive sign but also a challenge since the industry depended on import of raw materials, Hung said.

The US is the biggest importer of Vietnamese garment and textile products (55 per cent), followed by the EU (18 per cent), Japan (11 per cent), South Korea (3 per cent), and ASEAN member countries (2 per cent).

The main export items are T-shirts, polo shirts, trousers and shorts in the low and medium segments.

There are 3,700 companies in the garment and textile sector, 35 per cent of them foreign owned, based mainly in HCM City and the southeast.

The conference was organised by the HCM City branch of the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry in HCM City and the US-based Dun&Bradstreet, a global business information provider.

Tags: Vietnam Garment industry