The sector’s export earnings are expected to surpass US$18 billion by the end of the year if the rising trend is successfully sustained.

However, challenges remain, low competitive capacity, low productivity, poor quality, insipid designs, and sluggish support industries.

The value of materials imported for garment production has stayed high over the past four months. The US$4.286 billion total, equivalent to 84.3 percent of export revenue, comprises cloth (US$2.34 billion), thread (US$471 million), and cotton (US$393 million).

Vietnam’s garments face tremendous competition from other countries, hurting market share.

The US is Vietnam’s largest garment importer, accounting for nearly half of the sector’s exports. Garments constitute 38.6 percent of Vietnam’s US exports in general.

Other major markets include Japan, the Republic of Korea (RoK), the UK, Spain, Canada, and Brazil.

In 2009, garments overtook crude oil to become Vietnam’s largest export commodity, but in the last four months of this year it fell to second, behind telephones.

The domestic sector contributes 40.9 percent of garment export revenue with the remainder coming from the foreign invested sector. The country has about 6,000 garment businesses that—combined with around some hundred thousands private units—employ over 1 million labourers.

VOV