23:19' 09/04/2009 (GMT+7)
VietNamNet Bridge – Many members of the ASEAN Federation of Textile Industries (Aftex) and some non-member countries on Tuesday predicted the crisis-battered garment industry in Southeast Asia would see a turnaround by the year-end.
Bui Xuan Khu (L), deputy minister of industry and trade, and Nguyen Trung Tin (C), vice chairman of HCMC view an industrial sewing machine on display at the Textile and Garment Industry Expo 2009 on Tuesday.
Export orders have declined sharply due to global economic recession, forcing a majority of the region’s garment makers to scale down production and thus making hundreds of thousands of workers jobless, heard a roundtable conference in HCMC on Tuesday.
“We are looking to expand our export markets, but it’s very hard during this time,” Van Sou Ieng, chairman of Aftex talked about Cambodia’s garment industry. This approach has also been adopted by other regional countries to weather the storm.
While export is decreasing, there is great growth potential in the domestic garment and textile markets in ASEAN countries. Van said some countries had reported remarkable increases in domestic sales in the first quarter of the year.
“With a flickering growing signal of the world economy, I predict the garment and textile industry of the region in general is still depressed in the second quarter, but it will be recovering by the end of this year,” he told the Daily on the sidelines of the roundtable.
Sharing Van’s view, Ade Sudradiat Usman, vice chairman of Indonesia’s Garment and Textile Association, said its garment industry was securing stable jobs for some 1.3 million people and that the workers would be in a better situation as domestic consumption of garment products grew 25% in the first quarter of the year.
“Our government has taken financial support measures to help the garment industry boost productivity, including tax reimbursements, financial subsidies for making students clothes and personal income tax exemptions for workers with a monthly wage of less than US$700,” Ade said.
Export revenue of Indonesia last year was some US$11 billion, and its export revenue in the first quarter of the year plunged 11%.
Ade told the Daily that his country’s garment industry was poised not to fall further from the second quarter and was expected to record a growth rate of some 6% this year.
Kim In Soo, vice president of the Fashion Association of South Korea, a non-member country of the Aftex, said the future of the garment and textile industry would be bright and regain its production momentum from early 2010.
“Though the recession is affecting everybody, the prospects for the world market are still positive because the April-July period is the big season for supply to the U.S. market, so I hope the garment industries of ASEAN countries will do well in the near future,” said Benny Pua, president of the Singapore Garment and Fashion Association.
Le Quoc An, chairman of the Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group, or Vinatex, and other representatives of Aftex members and non-members agreed that they would need to upgrade production technologies and apply newer designs to step up their competitiveness.
According to Vinatex, Vietnam achieved total export revenue of US$9.1 billion last year and is looking to achieve over US$10 billion this year. However, the chairman of Vinatex told the Daily a day earlier that this year’s export revenue target was seen unattainable.
Vietnam’s garment and textile industry employs some two million people.
In a related development, there will be a business matching session between Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam this morning as part as the 19th four-day garment and textile exhibition which opened at the HCMC International Exhibition and Convention Center on Tuesday.
VietNamNet/SGT
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