With export turnover of US$ 10 bln, or five times higher than the current level, Vietnam has set a target to rank among the 10 biggest garment makers in the world by 2010. At present Vietnam ranks 16th among the 153 existing apparel producers and exporters in the world, according to Mr. Le Quoc An, President of the Vietnam textile and Apparel Association (Vitas). The situation will be changed as Vietnam is planning to rank among top 10 biggest producers by 2010. Vietnam has been a big garment producer in terms of production scale. The Vietnam National textile and garment Corporation (Vinatex) alone had a total export turnover of US$ 1.05bln in 2005. Meanwhile, only five out of 200 Chinese exporters can get the revenue of more than US$ 1bln. As such, Vietnam is seen as a big garment producer, but it still has to overcome many shortcomings to develop powerful groups, especially in terms of competitiveness, stable development and trade marks. In order to become one of the 10 biggest apparel exporters, Vinatex will focus on pushing up production, building trade marks and developing domestic and export markets. Under the development plan in 2006, Vietnam will concentrate on forming up textile and
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| garment material trading centres, which are considered the major premise for a good garment industry. Vietnam is planning to set up several industrial zones specialising in textile and garment and upgrade the existing workshops, of which Vinatex alone will inject VND 1,773bln (US$118mln) on production and business expansion projects. Vietnam is planning to develop 10-20 national brand names, of which 1-2 brand names will be popularised abroad. It is also planning to cooperate with 2-4 foreign brand names to make products in Vietnam for domestic consumption. In the immediate time, Vinatex will set up the design and industrial fashion models business centres in Hanoi and HCM City. In the domestic market, Vinatex has developed 28 supermarkets nationwide. It is planning to continuously expand the agent network in order to dominate the domestic market, serving as the jumping-off place for export. Vietnam’s apparel producers will still have to face a lot of difficulties this year since Vietnam has yet become an official member of WTO. Vietnam’s apparel exports to the US are being limited under the quota scheme, while exports to the US amount to 60% of total exports. Despite the big challenges, Vietnam strives to reach an export turnover of US$ 5.6 bln in 2006. 
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