The footwear industry is estimated to count US$18 billion from export this year while the textile and garment industry expects to earn US$31 billion.
According to the Vietnam Leather, Footwear and Handbag Association (Lefaso), Vietnam fetched nearly $13 billion from footwear exports in the year to the end of October, up 13 per cent on-year.
The full-year export value for the footwear sector is forecast to touch $15 billion, while it was $13 billion in 2016.

The footwear industry is estimated to count US$18 billion from export this year.

Major export markets for Vietnamese footwear products remain the US, Europe, China, and Japan. The US accounted for 35.3 per cent of the country’s total footwear export value with nearly $4.17 billion, up 13.7 per cent on-year, while exports to the EU brought in $3.68 billion, making up 31.2 per cent and increasing by 10.5 per cent on-year.
China took the second position behind the US with $930 million, a 30.3 per cent jump on-year, making up 8 per cent of the sector’s total export value.
With export value averaging at $100 million per month, Lefaso expects the sector’s total export value to China to reach $1.2 billion this year, paving the way for more robust export growth in the forthcoming years.
Among the ASEAN markets, Vietnamese footwear exports to Indonesia jumped 53 per cent on-year, to nearly $37 million.
Export value to other markets also rose sharply. For instance, exports to Singapore increased by 45 per cent, to Poland 33 per cent, to India 33.7 per cent, and to Hungary 34 per cent.
As for textile and garment exports, Vu Duc Giang, Chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (Vitas), projected that the sector’s exports could reach $31 billion this year, surpassing the target by $1 billion.
Vitas reported that the textile and garment sector earned $25.7 billion in export value in the first ten months of the year, an 11 per cent increase year-on-year. The figure is estimated to reach $28.5 billion by the end of November.
According to Le Tien Truong, Vinatex general director, the United States’ withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) has not affected Vietnam’s apparel exports to the US.
Truong said that Vietnam last year earned $11.45 billion from textile and garment exports to the US, up 4.5 per cent over the previous year. This year, the export value continues on this upward trend and is expected to reach $12.5 billion.
According to foreign experts, the world economy fared better this year than last year, and China’s reduced investment incentives to its textile, garment, and footwear sectors to focus on the development of higher technology industries have partially shifted processing orders from China to Vietnam to take advantage of the Vietnam-EU Free Trade Agreement slated to come into force from 2018.