HANOI, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam is joining negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which is expected to bring in numerous benefits to the country's garment, textile sector in terms of cost, market scale, and material supply, according to Vu Duc Giang, Chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS).
The RCEP, if comes into force, will create huge impetus for Vietnamese garment, textile sector as the country will not have to bear many trade barriers, local Bao Cong Thuong (Industry and Trade News) online newspaper quoted Giang as saying on Wednesday.
The RCEP covers 16 countries, including 10 members of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations and their regional trading partners of China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India.
When participating in the RCEP, Vietnam will have a strategic market in Asia with three major benefits. The first thing is lower transportation fees due to geographical proximity. Secondly, RCEP market will help Vietnamese firms with supply of raw materials.
Thirdly, the cultural similarities among Asian countries will help the RCEP negotiation and signing processes take place faster, said Giang.
According to the VITAS chairman, so far, Vietnamese firms have had orders till the end of August this year. Giang forecast that the garment, textile exports would experience a growth of 13-14 percent in 2017, compared to 9.2 percent in 2016.
However, the deeper the integration is, the fiercer the competition will be, said Giang, urging local companies to enhance management to ensure providing products with more competitive price, higher quality, and shorter delivery time.
In the first quarter of 2017, Vietnam earned 5.6 billion U.S. dollars from garment, textile exports, up 10.2 percent year-on-year, while spending 2.3 billion U.S. dollars on fabric imports, up 5.5 percent, according to the Vietnam's General Statistics Office.
