At present, Vietnam is the world’s third largest importers of textiles and ranks fifth on the list of the largest suppliers of garment products. On the other hand, India is the world’s second largest producer of input materials for the textile and garment industry, such as cotton, cloth and fiber. Keeping this in mind, the Indian textile and garment material suppliers have drawn up a plan to raise their market share in Vietnam to 25 percent by 2018.

Manikam Ramaswami, chairman of the Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council of India (TEXPROCIL), at a seminar which was part of the Vietnam-India Textile and Garment Business Forum organized from August 4 to 8 in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday, said that the plan has been drawn which will leverage the potential of both foreign suppliers and local customers.

However, India textile and garment material suppliers provide only two percent of the input used by the Vietnamese textile and garment industry, the chairman said.

Though achieving impressive growth in the clothing sector, Vietnam heavily relies on imported raw materials.

TEXPROCIL hopes to provide Vietnamese enterprises with diversified materials and at the same time expand the share of Indian textile and garment materials in the potential Vietnamese market.

The forum was joined by executives from 12 leading textile and garment companies under TEXPROCIL and their Vietnamese partners.

TEXPROCIL and Indian business delegations, which include leading textile and garment material manufacturers, have conducted many business missions to promote trade cooperation with Vietnamese manufacturers.

TEXPROCIL has sent many delegations to Vietnam to look for opportunities for future cooperation with local garment manufacturers, as the cooperation will benefit both parties, Ramaswami said.

The supplementary cooperation between the two countries will be the basic premises for Vietnamese enterprises in actively diversifying their source of materials and promoting the production of high quality products in international markets, the chairman added.

According to Siddhartha Rajagopal, TEXPROCIL’s executive director, in order to maintain its growth momentum, Vietnam should diversify its supply sources for ample quantities of quality woven and knit fabrics at the right prices.

As a result, India could be an economical and sustainable source of quality yarns and fabrics for Vietnam so that the country can continue to maintain its competitive edge in prices.

According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, trade ties between Vietnam and India are developing quickly, approaching the target of $7 billion in two-way trade by 2015.

Trade between the two Asian countries has sharply improved in recent years, touching US$5.2 billion in 2013, of which Vietnam’s exports accounted for $2.3 billion, said Bui Thi Thanh An, deputy director general of the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency.