Vietnam Garment Export Statistics

Walking a tightrope between ambition and adversity, Vietnam's garment industry is racing to hit $68 to $70 billion in exports and spawn 30 global brands by 2030 while lifting local content to 60 to 65 percent by 2025 and pushing for 100 percent recyclable products by 2035, even as it must slash energy and water use, meet EU Green Deal and Uyghur Act rules that could threaten up to 30 percent of exports, survive a predicted 20 to 30 percent drop in orders and a 15 percent energy cost shock, plug a shortage of 10,000 skilled engineers plus a dyeing bottleneck affecting half of fabric output, close a 20 percent productivity gap with China against Bangladesh’s roughly 30 percent cheaper labor and logistics 6 to 20 percent higher than rivals, scale circular economy practices from a meager 5 to 7 percent, tame raw material price volatility that 70 percent of firms cite as their biggest headache, prepare for carbon border taxes by 2026, and digitize sampling to halve physical waste by 2028 while targeting 10 percent annual domestic growth.

Second only to China, Vietnam's garment industry stitched together nearly $44 billion in exports in 2022 and, despite a 17.6 percent Q1 2023 slump and a late‑2022 order shock from global inflation, its heavy reliance on Cut Make Trim, rising value added approaching 50 percent, booming technical, non‑woven and high‑end niches, a roughly $20 billion textile trade surplus and a sturdy 4 to 5 billion dollar domestic market suggest the sector is smartly shifting from pure volume to value, with January 2024's $3.1 billion pickup hinting recovery.

With more than $35 billion stitched into Vietnam’s textile sector, foreign investors—led historically by South Korea and increasingly by fast-growing Chinese capital alongside major players from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan—have refashioned the industry toward upstream yarn and fabric production, shifted projects to lower-cost provinces, captured about 60 percent of export value while employing roughly 40 percent of the workforce, and poured billions into landmark fiber and industrial-park investments such as those by Hyosung, Texhong and Regina Miracle even as dyeing projects face tougher environmental licensing.

Vietnam's garment industry has become a strategic global hub; the United States alone takes over 40% of exports with Vietnam holding 15% of U.S. apparel imports; the EU, Canada and Mexico surged after EVFTA, CPTPP and UKVFTA implementation; China consumes more than half of Vietnam's yarn; Japan accounts for about 10 to 12 percent while South Korea imports three to four billion dollars annually and sources over 30 percent of its apparel from Vietnam; Taiwan and Australia import high quality fabrics and roughly 100 million and 400 million dollars respectively; ASEAN receipts reached about 1.5 billion dollars in 2022; the UAE and the Netherlands act as re export and EU entry hubs with 200 million dollars and 25 percent of EU volume; exports to India and New Zealand grew in raw fiber and knitwear; Turkey ranks Vietnam as its sixth largest supplier; RCEP's simplified rules of origin have stitched these gains into faster regional access; and the bottom line is that savvy trade deals and diversified markets, not just low costs, are what now sew Vietnam's competitive edge.

Vietnam's garment sector punches well above its weight as a female dominated engine of jobs and exports, producing billions of meters of fabric and supporting millions, yet it remains heavily reliant on imported cotton, limited local weaving and dyeing capacity, low design and automation adoption, and modest wages, a mix that highlights its resilience while underscoring the urgent need for industrial upgrading.