Vietnam’s market shifted from a centralized communist market to a mixed economy thereby boosting FDI in the country. Today, Vietnam is one of the fastest growing market in Southeast Asia. Vietnam’s textile and garment industry are exported to 40 countries including the US, European Union, and the far eastern countries like the People’s Republic of China, Japan and South Korea.
United States is the largest export market of Vietnam’s garment fabrics followed by EU. However, Vietnam has captured only 1.9 per cent share of the union’s total import value, According to the association, presenting opportunities for growth. Vietnam’s narrow growth is due to lack of modernization in designs. But many countries are opting for Vietnam instead of China because of cheap labor and raw materials. South Korea has heavily invested in the country followed by Luxembourg and Singapore.
The Trans Pacific Partnership plays an important role in the economy of Vietnam. Hence garment enterprise expect the Association of South East Asian Region (ASEAN) where Vietnam is also an active member to sign a Free Trade Agreement between the latter and the EU, this can benefit local garment enterprises in gaining more options to get material for garment production from other ASEAN countries.
According to General Department of Customs figures, in 2016 textile and garment sector’s total exports value was $23.8 billion, an increase of 4.6 per cent year-on-year. Many enterprises invested in building textile and dying factories on an extensive and intensive scale to boost opportunities in production and business for the planned Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), says association. But now that TPP with the US is no longer happening, experts say these facilities would help the textile and garment industry complete production processes and actively source material, focusing on significant opportunities offered by other FTAs, such as the Vietnam-EU FTA and the Vietnam-Republic of Korea FTA.
