Vietnamese vendors in Brazil reap windfall from World Cup

The 32-year-old, who left Vietnam for the South American country in 2007, is now running many garment stores in São Paulo, and his football-themed T-shirts and Brazilian national jersey are selling like hot cakes, he said.

“Three days before the opening match, I constantly ran out of stock as orders kept flooding my store,” Thao told a Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporter who is in Brazil to cover the world’s largest football event.

Thao said he had asked the jersey maker to work 24/7, but “supply remained short of demand.”

His products are distributed to retailers across Brazil and there are also a number of visitors dropping by every day.

Thao rakes in a 40 percent profit from each T-shirt he sells, with daily sales revolving around 5,000 to 10,000 items.

The World Cup has proven to be a good business season for many other overseas Vietnamese who sell clothes in Brazil.

T-shirts in yellow and blue emblazoned with the Brazilian flag are particularly favored by local football fans, who sport them to cheer for their home country.

“We get to the market at 2:00 am and close at 2:00 pm,” Nguyen Huu Can and his wife Nguyen Thi Kieng said.

“We close later than usual as there are many customers.”

The 2014 FIFA World Cup began on June 13 and will end on July 14.