According to statistics, Vietnam’s textile and apparel exports in the first quarter of 2016 were US$5.1 billion, an increase of approximately 4.9%. The relatively slow increase was mainly due to the shrinking orders in the United States, Europe and other markets. At the same time, rising production costs in Vietnam have also led to rising export prices.
In the first quarter of 2016, Vietnam’s apparel exports to the United States increased by 5.8% year-on-year (the annual growth rate in 2015 was 13%); to the European Union, the growth rate was 1.8%, compared with 13% in the same period last year; to Japan, the growth rate remained unchanged, compared with the same period last year It was 7.1%; the increase in South Korea reached 11.3%, compared with only 2.8% in the same period last year.
U.S. official data confirmed that U.S. clothing imports from Vietnam increased by only 7.6% in the first quarter, while the growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2012 has remained at double digits.
Despite this, Vietnam’s apparel export volume increased by 63% cumulatively from the first quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2016, and its market share in U.S. apparel imports increased to 12.8%, second only to China’s 37.2%. In the first quarter of 2016, the unit price of Vietnam’s apparel exports to the United States fell by 1.7%, and the unit price of Vietnam’s exports to China fell by 4.4%. Due to low labor prices, Vietnam’s high-end clothing exports surpassed China’s in the first quarter of 2016, and the average export price was 23% higher than China’s.
Compared with pure cotton clothing, chemical fiber clothing has a higher demand. According to statistics, in the first quarter of 2016, Vietnam’s chemical fiber clothing exports to the United States increased by 11.8% year-on-year, while pure cotton clothing increased by only 1.3%. Among them, the export value of chemical fiber underwear nearly doubled year-on-year, with a market share of 10%, and the export value of women’s chemical fiber shirts increased by 35%.
In the EU market, Vietnam’s textile and apparel exports to the EU increased by 1.8% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2016. The export volume increased by 35% from the first quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2016. Vietnam has become the EU’s sixth largest supplier of textiles and apparel. . Vietnam’s exports to the EU accounted for 2.84% of Vietnam’s total textile and apparel exports, and its export value accounted for 3.57% of total exports. In the first quarter of 2016, the unit price of textile and clothing exports from Vietnam to the EU increased by 5.4%. This shows that Vietnam’s clothing exports to the EU are mainly high-quality.
