With this, footwear ranked 5th out of seven items with export turnover of more than 10 billion USD.
Like textiles and garments, orders from domestic footwear enterprises are getting better towards the end of the year as they prepare to enter the peak production season.
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| Vietnam earned over 16.53 billion USD from footwear exports in the first nine months of 2024. (Photo: congthuong.vn) |
Ms. Phan Thi Thanh Xuan, Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Leather, Footwear and Handbag Association, said that orders are currently recovering, but domestic footwear enterprises still face major obstacles due to labor shortages. This is a big challenge, because in labor-intensive industries such as footwear and textiles, human resources are considered the greatest asset.
However, she emphasized that the double-digit growth is quite positive. In 2024, it is likely that the leather and footwear industry will fulfill the target of 27 billion USD.
Statistics also show that leather and footwear export turnover to markets remained stable. In the first nine months, the industry exported 5.58 billion USD worth of products to the US market, up 17.1%, while those to the EU (27 countries) were worth 3.63 billion USD, up 14.3%, and China, 1.32 billion USD, up 5.5% year on year.
At an event related to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) recently organized by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ms. Xuan said that the association had submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Industry and Trade to build a trading center for raw materials for the Vietnamese fashion industry.
Ms. Xuan explained that raw materials are a very important factor for the fashion industry, accounting for a very large proportion of up to 65% of the product cost. If the Vietnamese fashion industry can be proactive in raw material sources meeting the standards of the export market, it will quickly meet orders, accelerate the growth rate of the industry, and expand its scale to 100 billion USD by 2030./.