Vinatex strives to perfect supply chain

photo: Hai Yen

Earlier this month, Vinatex International Joint Stock Company (VTJ), a member of state giant Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex), and its Japanese partner Toms Limited had inked a joint venture (JV) agreement to build a textile-dyeing-garment complex in the central region province of Quang Tri’s Hai Lang district.

Accordingly, the JV complex aims to produce elastic T-shirts, a key item of Toms Limited, at the Dien Sanh industrial cluster. The complex is planned to operate a complete production model, capable of processing goods from start to finish.

The project, worth $12 million in total investment capital, will consist of three plants: a textile dyeing plant with an annual capacity of 2,500 tonnes of knitted fabrics, a garment plant producing more than 10 million items a year and a waste-water treatment plant with a daily capacity of 1,200 cubic metres.

According to Vinatex deputy general director and VTJ general director Dang Vu Hung, once completed, the project will be the most state-of-the art knitwear manufacturing base in Vietnam’s central region

The whole complex is slated to finalise construction and put into operation within this year and is expected to generate $8 million in revenue at first, increasing to $40 million by 2017.

Le Tien Truong, Vinatex’s general director, said the combined comparative advantages of foreign and domestic partners could help JV projects of this kind operate more efficiently, through capitalising on the foreign partners’ stable output market.

VTJ’s foreign partner Toms Limited is a leading garment maker in Japan, specialising in T-shirts, Polo-shirts, Sweat shirts, blousons and uniforms.

The company’s trading branches have expanded throughout Japan, making up a retail system reaching from Hokkaido in the north to Kyushu in the south.

In Japan, Toms Limited has opened a fully Japanese-owned plant with a complete production process which achieves a revenue of $200 million per year.

Prior to the deal with Toms, Vinatex and Japan’s Itochu had signed a framework agreement to implement a string of new projects on textile dyeing and material supply in Vietnam which envisages generating $60 million in revenue during the next five years and creating thousands of jobs in future project sites.

After the Quang Tri textile-dyeing-garment complex, Vinatex was reported to set eyes on several northern locations such as Thai Binh and Nam Dinh to expand the complete production JV model, planning to follow the working investment procedure of teaming up with foreign partners wishing to tap Vietnamese market potential.