Photo: vinacorp.vn

Claudio Dordi, Chief Advisor of the European Trade Policy and Investment Support Project (EU-MUTRAP), has suggested Vietnamese garment-textile and leather footwear businesses pay more attention to the rules of product origin, increase distribution channels and build national brand names in the EU market.

Speaking at a conference in Ho Chi Minh City on September 25, the advisor said Vietnam should focus on environmentally and socially friendly products and follow technical regulations as well as hygiene and safety standards.

He explained that once the Vietnam-EU Free Trade Agreement goes into effect, the pact will spur the country’s exports by 50 percent in 2020 and 93 percent in 2025 with garments and textiles up 16 percent and leather products up 31 percent.

Experts at the event also said the deal is expected to greatly impact Vietnamese exporters in various aspects such as tax reductions, employment stipulations, environmental standards, intellectual property rights and technical regulations.

They stressed the need for Vietnamese enterprises to raise awareness of the agreement to thoroughly grasp the EU’s quality and technical requirements as well as its consumption trends, thus fully tapping opportunities afforded by the market.

Vietnam has been listed among the world’s top ten garment-textile and leather footwear exporters with an annual average growth rate of 15 percent over the past five years.

In 2014, the country earned 20.9 billion USD from shipping garments and textiles abroad and 12.7 billion USD from leather footwear exports.

The EU remains Vietnam’s largest garment-textile and footwear export market with a turnover of nearly 3.6 billon USD last year, up 17.3 percent from the previous year and making up 34 percent of the Southeast Asian country’s total figure.

Source: VNA