The apparel export sector of Vietnam is expected to get a boost from October 1, the day the Vietnam-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (VJEPA) comes in to effect, which entails export of textiles and apparels to Japan at zero-duty. More than 80 percent of the companies have their order book positions full up to the end of the year and nearly 40-50 percent of these orders are from Japanese retailers.
The Saigon 3 Garment Co. has signed a memorandum of understanding with Japanese partners that will use its full capacity until the middle of 2010. Though previously Saigon 3 has made a wide range of shirts, jackets and sportswear, it is retooling to make jeans and khaki pants for Japan.
It's a market where, says General Director Pham Xuan Hong, “consumers are very fastidious and we need to specialize to be able to provide higher quality products”. Incidentally, from amongst 47 Vietnamese jeans exporters, Saigon 3 led the pack with exports totaling to US $16.7 million in the first seven months of 2009, a gain of 82 percent over the previous year.
Saigon 3 earns up to $1.30 per pair of jeans, when exporting to Japan, while it gets only $1.20 when exporting the same to the US. The gap between the prices of exports to the US and Japan is not big, but what is appreciated is the steadiness of the orders from Japan. However, exporting companies take utmost care to maintain stringent quality standards, when shipping apparels to Japan.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnam-made products of all kinds, now account for just 1.19 percent by value of Japanese imports, trailing Malaysia (3.05 percent), Thailand (2.73 percent), Indonesia (4.27 percent) and China (18.83 percent).
Fibre2fashion News Desk - India
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