Garments account for 78 per cent of Vietnam’s export turnover. Export turnover of Vietnam’s garment and textile industry is the third highest after China and Bangladesh. The middle class in Vietnam is expected to account for 50 per cent of the population by 2030. As of now the industry has to import 60 per cent of fiber materials.

Vietnam has not mastered and developed production stages such as dyeing, manufacturing high quality fabrics, high-quality materials and accessories. That is the reason why value added has not been high. One target set for the industry is to create brand names, at least 30 of them by 2030. This is expected to bring long-lasting benefits for the country and future generations. By 2030, the goal is to have an export turnover of $100 billion.

The difficulties being faced by Vietnam’s textile industry include: rising costs of raw materials from China and lower prices demanded by foreign buyers. Vietnam is losing its low labor cost edge over other countries even as its use of technology in production remains limited, leading to reduced competitiveness. Vietnamese textile manufacturers are seeing orders decline, with buyers moving to other, cheaper developing countries. Normally, by the end of a year, manufacturers have enough orders for the whole of the following year. But this year many do not have enough orders for 2020, with some reporting a 20 per cent drop in orders from last year.