Industrial experts detailed five major challenges awaiting Vietnam’s footwear industry as the country officially joined WTO at a recent declaration of Vietnam Shoes and Leather Association (Vitas).
Firstly, abolishing subsidy for exports and expanding markets would bring made–in–Vietnam footwear product to a fierce playground where they should be harshly competed.
Secondly, discrimination among big firms and private ones in terms of finance system served for Vietnam’s strategy of developing FOB trend, this would restrict development of domestic materials and supporting industry.
Thirdly, traditional customers of Vietnam would shift their orders, even investment operations to other countries owning lower–production cost, like China and Indonesia.
Fourthly, if Vietnamese enterprises focus on high–quality products, they will face fierce competition from big partners from Italy, France, Spain, England and Germany who have been dominating the high–quality products market share.
In the meanwhile, if the domestic enterprises develop the cheap–price products, they will face difficulty in gaining a victory over partners from China because materials industry of China has been developing for long time, with their higher productivity than Vietnam.
The last is that other cheap–production cost countries could outrun Vietnam at emerging import markets, since these countries have been receiving more and more supports from their government and development of private sector.
Despite EU’s punitive duties, the shoe industry is estimated to obtain an increase of 27.2 per cent on-year in export revenues to reach $2.87 billion in the first ten months of this year.
(fibre2fashion.com, Young People)
Vietnamese
