In keeping with its initiative of creating awareness about wool, Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) is helping Vietnamese manufacturers in its wool products. Vietnamese companies are not familiar with wool but with the help of AWI, players are working on creating a range of products. This will help the Australian wool industry reduce its reliance on China, as nearly 75 per cent of the Australian wool is exported to China.
AWI organized training programs for the Vietnamese manufacturers to explain them in detail about wool’s properties, benefits and features for manufacturing and producing garments. Next step was introducing manufacturers to suppliers of Australian wool yarns and encouraging companies to set up their own spinning facilities and ultimately their own scouring and top making plants in Vietnam. Vietnamese producers are importing yarn from China, India, Italy and Germany but with an increase in domestic production, it can cut down on import costs.
AWI is now in discussion with Vietnamese and six foreign companies to invest in setting up a wool weaving plant in Vietnam. Manufacturers from Vietnam would be introduced to the first delegation of 10 companies from Japan, who will be traveling to Vietnam next month. Following Japanese buyers’ visit, will be a group of Korean retailers and in future AWI plans to follow this with buyers from Europe and the US too. AWI has been taking various initiatives by investing in R&D on and off farm, marketing the product worldwide to ensure demand and maintain strong pricing.
