Currently, Vitas maintains strong co-operative relations with foreign textile and garment associations and is working together with US garment importers who are actively helping us overcome trade barriers in the US market.

The second main role of Vitas is to co-ordinate enterprises in fulfilling major projects such as building industrial parks specialising in garment production and doing trade promotions.

Vitas is preparing for the establishment of an e-commerce company focused on the garment industry and also the building of facilities producing raw materials.

These are thing individual enterprises cannot carry out by themselves or, if they can do, it's not the most efficient or profitable. Vitas therefore becomes the promoter and coordinator of these projects.

Our recent third congress met in an environment full of opportunities but challenges as well. Vietnam has become an official member of the WTO and is engaged deeply in international economic integration.

That brings a lot of opportunities. However, we are facing trade barriers from several export markets and fiercer competition from Chinese, Indian and Bangladeshi garment producers.

The congress identified three main issues facing Vietnamese garment industry which are increasing domestic content; improving labour relations, and sustainable development of skilful and competitive human resources including managers, designers and market specialists. The congress put forward eight key programmes and Vitas will be on point to coordinate their implementation.

The congress selected an executive board of 73 members representing major product groups as well as the foreign-invested sector. I strongly hope that the new executive board will coordinate effectively to further enhance the association's role.

• One of the weak points of Vietnamese garment industry is the dependence on imported materials. What is Vitas' strategy to address this shortcoming?

It is a fact that although the garment sector has seen considerable growth in exports in the past few years and last year ranked second among the nation's top export products, the industry earned low value added due to the dependences imported raw materials. This has been of great concern not on to the garment industry but also high-level State officials.

Therefore, Vitas has designed several key programmes for increasing the development of domestic raw material sources. These include investing in synthetic fibre production for the textile industry, enhancing the quality of weaving and dying industrial zones.

In addition, a programme is underway to make the domestic garment industry more fashionable and develop more qualified fashion designers together along with high-quality, Vietnamese fashion trademarks.

• How will Vitas meet the target of exporting $10-12bil in 2010?

Last year, garment exports totalled nearly $6bil with an annual growth rate of 20%. We figure that, in the near future, the annual growth rate for garment exports will be about 20%. If there were no trade barriers, the growth rate would be 30% or more. Accordingly, from $6bil in 2006, the target of $10-12bil in 2010 is reasonable and in line with the industry's capacity.

The nation's WTO accession, besides bringing about easier access to export markets, also welcomes more foreign investors to the industry. We expects many garment makers from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan to move production to Vietnam, which would bring us more advantages.

• Can you comment about the possibility that the US Department of Commerce will impose an anti-dumping tariff on Vietnamese garment imports?

I think that, in 2007, they won't do anything beyond applying their monitoring system. What they will do in 2008 depends mostly in the result of monitoring in 2007 and our lobbying efforts. I believe that everything will be okay.

Source: Viet Nam News