Vietnam, RoK firms look to boost trade in apparel, footwear

Making apparel products for export at Hung Viet garment company, Yen My district, Hung Yen province. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi – The Republic of Korea (RoK) is the largest investor in the textile - garment and leather - footwear industries of Vietnam, which holds considerable chances to boost the export of these commodities to the Northeast Asian market, heard a recent teleconference.

Addressing the business matching event, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency Le Hoang Tai said the RoK is currently one of the leading economic partners of Vietnam, ranking first in foreign direct investment and third in trade with the latter last year.

Bilateral trade reached 63 billion USD in the first 10 months of 2021, up 17.6 percent year on year. That included 17.9 billion USD of Vietnamese exports, rising 11.5 percent.

Vietnam shipped 26.9 billion USD worth of textile - garment and 14.24 billion USD worth of leather - footwear products to the RoK during the period. The full-year figures are forecast to hit 33.9 billion USD and 18.52 billion USD, respectively, according to Tai.

Kyoung Don Kim, head of the investment promotion division at the Korea Trade - Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) Office in Hanoi, noted his country is the biggest investor in the textile - garment industry in Vietnam, which in turn is the second trade partner of the RoK in this sector.

Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Textile & Apparel Association (VITAS) Truong Van Cam expressed his hope that the RoK will invest more in the local industry, especially in material production and design, so as to benefit from preferential treatment under free trade agreements.

For her part, Phan Thi Thanh Xuan, Vice Chairwoman and Secretary General of the Vietnam Leather, Footwear and Handbag Association (LEFASO), said the country is the second biggest exporter of leather - footwear products in the world, about 20 billion USD in revenue, following China. There are nearly 2,000 enterprises in this sector, and they engage in all production steps. Meanwhile, the RoK is one of the five main export markets of this industry.

Given this, Vietnamese businesses have relatively big opportunities to cooperate with Korean importers to boost exports, she added.