RoK hungry for Vietnamese garment

Up until July, Vietnam gained a year-on-year increase of 24.88% in textile and garment export value to US$1.5 billion to the RoK, creating a strong breakthrough of those products to this market.

In July alone, the export value of those products to this Northern Asian market reached US$270.7 million, a rise of 24.18% against June and 24.06% compared with July 2017.

China and Vietnam were the two largest garment suppliers to the South Korean market, accounting for 34.46% and 32.67%, respectively.

Vietnam’s garment exports to this market accelerated rapidly reducing the gap between market share of China and Vietnam on the South Korean garment market at 40.18% and 29.52%, respectively, three years ago.

According to Vietnam’s General Department of Customs, the RoK became the fourth largest export market of Vietnam, reaching US$2.7 billion in 2017.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade said the strong growth in exports to the RoK was mainly due to the high competitive ability of Vietnam’s garments and higher spending of consumers on this market.

In addition, tariff preferences from the Vietnam – RoK free trade agreement encouraged Vietnam’s textile and garment products entering the South Korean market, the ministry said. According to the FTA, 24 products of Vietnam enjoy lower tax against other countries in the ASEAN region.

By the end of this year, Vietnam’s textile and garment exports to the RoK are expected to increase by 20% year on year. The textile and garment export value is estimated to rise 22% year on year to US$3.2 billion for this whole year, reported vneconomy.vn.

Vietnam is considered to have many advantages in supplying textile and garment products to the RoK. It is likely to become the largest garment supplier to this market.

The General Department of Customs said in the first seven months of this year, Vietnam gained US$10.2 billion from the total export value to the RoK, a year-on-year increase of 32.13%.

Of which, three groups of phones and components, textile and garment, and computers and electronic products achieved export value of over US$1 billion for each, accounting for over 40% of Vietnam’s total export value of goods to this market.