EXPORT EARNINGS FROM COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS OUTPACE APPAREL INDUSTRY
As an indication of Vietnam’s entering the ranks of countries with more industrialized economies, Vietnam’s export earnings from computers, electronic products and their spare parts are now ranked second in revenues, with traditional textiles and garments falling behind to third place.
VIETNAM IMPORTS US$6.6 BILLION IN TEXTILE-GARMENT MATERIALS IN H1
Though the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) has been in force for a while, Vietnam has not made much use of the free trade agreement and imported US$6.7 billion worth of materials in the first half of the year.
APPAREL ORDERS FROM IMPORTERS PLUNGE 30%: VITAS
Many experts had forecast that the United States-China trade war would help shift orders from China to Vietnam. In addition, Vietnam has participated in multiple new-generation free trade agreements, such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which are highly expected to help boost local exports.
GARMENT AND FOOTWEAR FIRMS WILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR EVFTA BENEFITS
This means for the first few years of EVFTA's implementation, most local garment and footwear products will not benefit from the EVFTA because MFN rates for those products are higher than GSP rates of 9 per cent for garment products and 3-4 per cent for footwear products at present.
VN APPAREL INDUSTRY SUFFERS DUE TO LACK OF COMPETITIVE DYEING, FABRIC SEGMENTS
Nguyễn Văn Tuấn, chairman of the Việt Nam Cotton and Spinning Association, told Thời Báo Kinh Doanh (Business Times) newspaper that while the yarn and apparel segments had grown strongly, others like dyeing were poorly developed, causing a bottleneck.
GLOBAL GARMENT FIRMS NO LONGER BULLISH ON VIETNAM AS COSTS RISE
"More and more companies come to Vietnam ... In the foreseeable future, we do foresee a shortage of labour and even fierce competition for hiring staff there," Makalot chairman and CEO Frank Chou told Nikkei Asian Review, adding the company would now focus on Indonesia, which he expects to become its most significant production base in three to five years.
UNLISTED PUBLIC COMPANY MARKET PROMISES INVESTORS BETTER PERFORMANCE
The improvement of the legal framework has been a boost to the market's performance. In the first six years of operation, there were only 169 companies on UPCoM with average daily trading value of VND15 billion (US$544,300).
AT A LOSS OVER FTAS
The textile and garment industry may fail to take tariff advantage from the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Vietnam-EU Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) as it cannot tackle the issue of local materials. Meanwhile, the Government and local authorities are still undecided over the planning for the industry.
