US garment manufacturer be cautious to import textile from Vietnam

The report from US <> in Dec.12, 06 shows that garment manufacturers from US Cal keep cautious to import textile from Vietnam. "We won' place orders in Vietnam enterprise until we understand the status of Vietnam", one un-named fashion trader from South-California told to reporter.

After being 150th member country of WTO on Jan.11, 2007, the garment and textile from Vietnam can enter into US market without any quota restriction but. Vietnam became more and more attractive due to its cheap garment. Compared with China, Vietnam own lower labor cost (lower 10%). What's more, many textile factories opened by Chinese can produce high quality garment. With the continual free quota treatment, Vietnam can expect to be the substitute exporter of China for some products. At present, US imposed quota restriction on 34 categories of China products which are the main export products of Vietnam to US, including synthesized coat, cotton trousers, trunk, women's knitted shirt and men's tatting shirts etc.
In 2005, US imported garment and textile with total value of 2.9billion USD from Vietnam. Though low than China's 22.4billion USD, Vietnam export value of garment & textile is expected to reach 14billion USD.

However, anti-dumping investigation is still a threat to Vietnam. It is seen that US president may strive to win the support from Conscript fathers Dole and Graham depending on anti-dumping investigation though he has endowed Vietnam with "Permanent Trade Relation" treatment through signing in <> on Dec.20, 2006.