In the first six months of 2017, the turnover from Vietnam’s exports of textiles and garments rose 10 per cent year-on-year. Despite increasing export turnover, development in textile and garment industry’s is hampered due to numerous reason. The industry wants wage increases to be put on hold and says any raise would increase the total production expenditure of textile and garment enterprises by 2.9 per cent. It wants minimum wage increases to be put off until 2020 or 2022. Simultaneously, enterprises say the minimum wage should not be used as the initial basis to build the payroll as well as the basis for contributing premium rates.

In the 2007-17, Vietnam saw regional minimum wages increase on an average 21.8 per cent for domestic enterprises and 15 per cent for foreign direct investment enterprises. Enterprises using domestic fabric sources to manufacture exported products want to be exempt from the value added tax.

Vietnam is one of the five largest textile and garment exporters in the world. Vietnam’s textile and apparel sector has set a target of seven per cent growth over 2016. Currently, Vietnam’s garment and textile products are available in 40 countries around the world, with major markets including the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, China and the EU.