At a press conference held on June 18 to introduce the third Denims & Jeans Exhibition, which will be held in HCMC late this month, Nguyen Thi Tuyet Mai, general secretary and head of the representative office in HCMC of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS), noted that Vietnam is one of the most attractive markets for those keen on the apparel sector.

Early last year, when the United States, the largest buyer of Vietnam's textiles and garments, withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the FDI capital injected into the local textile-garment sector dipped and tended to flow to other markets with a lower-cost workforce and lower import duties, such as Cambodia, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Since the third quarter of last year, foreign investments in the sector have increased again due to domestic textile-garment enterprises’ high-quality products and short delivery time.

According to VITAS, Vietnam has inked 16 bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements (FTAs), including CPTPP and EVFTA, which will take effect in the near future, creating numerous opportunities for local textile-garment producers.

Mai said import duties of the European Union, Vietnam’s second-largest importer, currently ranging from 10% to 12%, will be cut to zero when EVFTA comes into force. She forecast South Korea would overtake Taiwan to become the largest investor in Vietnam’s textile-garment sector in the near future as this country has clinched a two-way FTA with Vietnam and a cooperation agreement with the European Union.

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Source From: VIETNAMNET