Vietnam’s textile industry relies heavily on imported cotton

The textile industry is Vietnam’s pillar industry, but Vietnam’s domestic cotton production is extremely low, only meeting 1% of its domestic production needs. The cotton required by the clothing and textile industries relies heavily on imports.
In the first seven months of this year, Vietnam’s cotton imports increased by 34%, reaching a record of 458,000 tons, and the total value of imported cotton increased by 36.3% compared with the same period, reaching US$919 million.
Ho Thi Kim Thoa, Vietnam’s Minister of Industry and Trade, said that the total area of ​​crop cultivation land in Vietnam has been reduced from 30,000 hectares to 10,000 hectares, resulting in a significant drop in cotton production. Cotton is the main raw material required for industrial development. Vietnam needs more than 400,000 tons of cotton to meet the rising demand for domestic industrial development. At present, it seems that the raw material cotton required for the development of Vietnam’s garment industry will still be mainly imported from abroad.
Although the government has approved a cotton planting development project (2015-2020), cotton farmers still face various difficulties. Due to higher returns from growing other crops, more and more local farmers in Vietnam no longer pay attention to cotton cultivation. To this end, the Vietnam National Textile and Apparel Development Group will set up cotton plantations to ensure the basic supply of raw materials, provide experience guidance to farmers, and actively encourage domestic farmers to expand the scale of cotton production.
In recent years, Vietnam’s clothing and textile industry has developed rapidly, but the raw materials required for production are still overly dependent on foreign supplies, and high prices must be paid for this. It is reported that most of the raw materials actually come from Africa, but most Vietnamese clothing manufacturers must purchase these raw materials through wholesalers or intermediaries in France, Switzerland, India and other countries.
If Vietnam can directly contact cotton suppliers in African countries and let them supply directly, it will not only bypass intermediaries, but also reduce the price of Vietnamese clothing products and improve the global competitiveness of Vietnamese clothing. Relevant industrial organizations in Vietnam are currently taking action to negotiate with African countries on cotton supply issues.
There are 55 major cotton procurement markets in Africa, and Vietnam currently imports cotton directly from 19 of them, including Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Industry insiders say that the quality of African cotton is actually quite good and the price is reasonable, making it suitable for yarn production.
Vietnam’s textile industry currently has 5.1 million spinning machines, which can produce approximately 700,000 tons of spinning threads every year. If raw materials can be directly supplied from more African countries in the future, Vietnam’s clothing and textile industry will be able to maintain rapid and sustainable development in the long term.