Le Tien Truong, general director of the Vietnam National Garment and Textile Group (Vinatex), speaking at a meeting on reporting Vinatex’s results of production and business in Ha Noi on Tuesday said that to achieve the target of more than 10 percent growth in 2018, the textile and garment industry must make great efforts to focus further on solutions to increase labour productivity also the local textile and garment industry must be careful with the anti-dumping story.

In 2018, Vietnam’s textile and garment industry will face more competition, while other textile exporting countries in the world plan to maintain their market shares in the world garment market, as well as expand their market shares further, Truong said.

However, Vietnam’s textile and garment industry stands at a good position in the world garment market as the major buyers of the world consider Vietnam as the supply centre and give priority to Viet Nam in supplying garment products to them. Vietnam is the world’s largest producer of men’s and women’s suits.

Moreover, Vietnam has had experience in converting from a production method of processing to an FOB (free on board) and ODM (original design manufacturer). Now, the processing has reached only 30-35 percent of production, while FOB has accounted for 55-60 percent and ODM producing textile and garment products, from designing to finished-products, has occupied 10 percent, Truong said.

In addition, the industry should continue to invest in technology development to create stability, sustainability and efficiency in development of the textile and garment industry.

Last year in 2017, the textile and garment industry gained a year-on-year increase of 10.23 percent in the export value of textile and garments to $31 billion, higher than its target set at the beginning of the year at $30 billion.

Major markets of the United States, the European Union, Japan and South Korea maintained good growth, while there were breakthroughs in exports to other markets such as China, Russia and Cambodia, according to Truong.

The South Korean market jumped to the fourth position, close to the Japanese market, reaching an export value of $2.7 billion in 2017. Vietnam’s textile and garment exports to China in 2017 reached $3.2 billion, the same as the export value to Japan.

Meanwhile, the domestic textile and garment market also gained a year-on-year growth rate of 10 per cent in 2017. The balance in development of the domestic market and the export market has been an important point for the local textile and garment industry to ensure jobs for the employees and to maintain development of the enterprises.

During the meeting, Vinatex reported its total revenue in 2017 was estimated to have increased year-on-year at 10.7 percent to VND45.55 trillion ($2.02 billion). Of this, domestic sales reached VND10.39 trillion, accounting for 22.8 percent of the total revenue, 10.6 percent higher than the revenue in 2016.

The pre-tax profit in 2017 reached VND1.43 trillion.

Vinatex has set a revenue target of VND48.5 trillion in 2018, a year-on-year surge of 6.5 percent and a pre-tax profit of VND1.45 trillion.