Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association's 2023 Summary Conference, Mr. Vu Duc Giang - Chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association said that 2023 is a year of great challenges for Vietnamese textile and garment enterprises. Enterprises have had to cope with pressure on prices, costs, short delivery times and ensuring jobs for workers. At the same time, being affected by competition in domestic and foreign markets, and policies that do not keep up with trends are challenges for the Vietnamese textile and garment industry.
In that context, the industry has built 3 solutions for the 2023 task. First , chain linkage, in the face of difficulties, the business community has shared orders, supported technology, and management experience.
Second , diversify markets, customers, and products. In 2023, the Vietnamese textile and garment industry exported to 104 markets and territories around the world. Notably, businesses have produced and exported products that have never been produced before to the Middle East and African markets.
And finally , implement solutions for sustainable development, greening, digital transformation, and digital governance.
 |
| The Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association 2023 Summary Conference gathered many delegates from ministries, branches and a large number of textile and garment enterprises to participate. |
“ Up to now, we have basically had certain successes, the textile and garment industry has overcome many barriers to achieve an export turnover of 40.3 billion USD. I believe that the lessons learned in 2023, together with the support of the Party, Government and State in creating a global market through free trade agreements, in 2024, the Vietnamese textile and garment industry will strive to achieve an export turnover of 44 billion USD ,” said Mr. Vu Duc Giang.
Analyzing the opportunities for this goal, Mr. Truong Van Cam - Vice President of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association - said that currently the economic situation in Vietnam's major textile and garment import markets is showing signs of recovery, which increases the possibility of improving demand for textiles and garments higher than in 2023.
Along with that, the lending interest rate level in Vietnam has now decreased significantly, helping to reduce the pressure on interest costs on businesses. Current government support policies may be extended into 2024. In particular, the approved Strategy for the development of the Vietnamese textile, garment and footwear industry to 2030, with a vision to 2035, will be one of the major advantages.
However, to achieve the 2024 target, the Vice President of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association said that the textile and garment industry will face great difficulties and challenges in terms of market requirements. Specifically, the application of the EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) and CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism) mechanisms as well as the "Sustainable Fashion" Strategy instead of "Fast Fashion".
Or like the EU's OECD Supply Chain Audit Directive; Germany's Supply Chain Due Diligence Law; the US Forced Labor Protection Act (UFLPA) for the textile industry. Along with that, the world economic growth in the next 2 years also depends on many factors, in which the focus is the conflict in the Middle East and the inflation control policies of some countries.
Regarding the main solutions to ensure the export target set for 2024, Mr. Truong Van Cam emphasized that there are a number of major solutions on: Sustainable development investment, market, technology application development, capital solutions, and solutions for training high-quality human resources for management.
In addition to the proactive solutions implemented by the industry, with the set goals, the representative of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association also recommended that the State soon deploy a package of 120,000 billion VND with preferential interest rates for building social housing and workers' housing, thereby issuing appropriate criteria for low-income people to benefit from the policy.
Continue to provide financial support to businesses to train, foster, and improve vocational skills for workers, especially for difficult-to-train occupations such as textile engineers, dyeing, design, for technological innovation, green skills, and digital transformation skills.
“ The 40,000 billion VND support package with an interest rate of 2% is being implemented very slowly at commercial banks, so we suggest that the State study and switch to supporting green transformation projects to meet new market regulations ,” said Mr. Truong Van Cam.
At the same time, it is proposed to remove VAT and on-site import tax for export production goods as prescribed in Decree 18/2021/NDCP; allowing foreign traders with or without presence in Vietnam to apply on-site import and export regulations.
Reduce the social insurance contribution rate, amend the pension regulations to reduce the number of workers withdrawing social insurance at one time, amend the unemployment insurance benefit regulations to avoid workers changing jobs, reduce the rate of enterprises paying union fees to a maximum of 1% and reduce the rate of payment to the higher-level union to a maximum of 15%.
At the Conference, Economic Expert Can Van Luc and Mr. Tran Thanh Hai - Deputy Director of the Import-Export Department, Ministry of Industry and Trade, both agreed that by 2024 there will be many bright signs for the industry to recover in terms of export production, however, the recovery rate is still slow.
In addition, standards related to green growth, sustainable growth, and circular economy are increasingly high and are being legalized, requiring domestic enterprises to proactively implement them to ensure they are not "thrown out" of the supply chain.
Source link
Comment (0)