Vietnam garment makers are struggling as EU and US buyers are cancelling orders over the Covid-19 crisis. A French company recently canceled orders placed with garment maker TNG over the spread of the novel coronavirus in France. Now about 200 containers that were supposed to go to the E.U. and the U.S. will remain in the country by the end of next month, each of them worth around $100,000.
Garment company Than Duc Viet might have to stop some production chains because U.S. buyers have delayed their orders. Its sea shipments in March have been postponed to April and May, and buyers have asked to stop the ongoing production of hundreds of thousands of products.
COVID-19 has already been a blow for Vietnam’s textile industry with producers struggling to source materials from China as factories there were shut down by the virus. Now that the supply chain has mostly been resumed, the industry faces the problem of selling to the E.U. and the U.S. where buyers have stopped ordering.
The EU on March 17 closed its borders for 30 days to contain the disease. Although the ban does not apply to goods, Vietnamese officials expect exports to the bloc to fall by up to 8 per cent in the first and second quarter due to lower demand.
