THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Growth of VN textile industry to continue

Growth of VN textile industry to continue

THE TEXTILE and garment industry are forecast to continue growing this year with promising signs from new markets abroad.

General Director of the Vietnam Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex) Le Tien Truong made the observation following the industry’s good results last quarter thanks to rapid growth from new markets such as the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which saw growth of 115 per cent in Russia; and the Asian Economic Community (AEC) with growth of 17 per cent, 11 per cent, 38 per cent, 24.5 per cent, 36 per cent and 5 per cent from Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.
Statistics showed that the industry earned US$6.75 billion (Bt233.7 billion) from exports in the first quarter of this year, up 12.4 per cent from the same quarter last year.
Although the industry faced many challenges in key export markets, including low growth rates of exports to the European Union and the United States of 6.3-6.4 per cent, traditional markets such as South Korea, Brazil and India maintained high growth 14-34 per cent.
Truong said the industry saw good growth in exports of many new products including swimsuits and raincoats with 29 per cent and 41 per cent.
“We can see that our efforts in using initiatives to access markets and exploiting bilateral and multilateral trade agreements have produced results, mostly in the EAEU and AEC,” he said.
Insiders said firms in the industry, particularly Vinatex, had performed well in recent years. 
They had foreseen the difficulties in European markets and the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement before devising their own ways to promote business overseas with new products.
New markets and new products have developed strongly since June when the businesses saw the advantages of trade agreements under negotiation with other countries. 
They concentrated on improving capacity, cutting costs and production prices even though domestic basic expenditures continued rising while the forex rate was stable.
In exports, the stable forex rate is a problem for businesses, particularly with Vietnam’s rivals, including China, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia, devaluing their currencies to keep their market shares.
“We textile and garment businesses always expect that in macro policies, there would be calculations to balance the Vietnamese dong’s forex rate and the currencies of other countries to raise their competition in exports,” Truong said.
The industry could reach the growth rate target of 10 per cent this year. This was a high target but with efforts from the entire industry it’s a reachable figure, he said.
 

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