US $ 27. 4 billion is what Vietnam’s apparel sector has earned from exports in the first 10 months of 2019.
Now that’s 10.4 per cent growth, which is no mean achievement by any standards. The year-on-year (y-o-y) increase has been 8.7 per cent – as confirmed by General Statistics Office.
In fact in October alone, Vietnam’s apparel and textile exports touched around US $ 2.8 billion (9 per cent y-o-y).
However, the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS) isn’t too hopeful of the industry achieving its 2019 export target of US $ 40 billion – despite good numbers.
Unlike 2017 and 2018, this year many local apparel companies have witnessed significant dip in long-term orders mainly because of the uncertain global scenario. And this may impact the final numbers!
VITAS believes another worrying part is that the country had to spend nearly US $ 13 billion last year in importing clothes (13.5 per cent increase) and sadly the quality of imported clothes has been far from being good.
