Garment exports to new markets willaccount for roughly 5 percent of the industry’s total export turnoverthis year, according to the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association(Vitas).

Vitas said that domestic apparel producers had recently won a number ofexport contracts in new markets such Turkey and Egypt .
The Middle East had also become a major market for Vietnamese cottonclothing, while Russia had imported a high volume of children’s clothes– chiefly jeans and jackets, it had.

Vitas said it hoped sales to new export markets would partly offset adrop in orders from major markets such as the US and EU.
Due to the global economic slowdown, the country’s apparel exportturnover to its traditional importers has shrunk markedly, forcing theindustry to revise down its export target from 10.5 billion USD to 9.2billion USD this year.

Vitas chairman Le Quoc An said the sector had earned 5 billion USD from exports in the first seven months of this year.

With the monthly average export turnover expected to be about 800million USD from now to the end of this year, the industry’s totalannual export revenue was likely to be 9.2 billion USD, An said.

In order to meet its export targets, the sector must conduct moretrade-promotion campaigns to find new markets, in South Africa , Africaand the Middle East , An said.

He added that Vitas would also look to promote Vietnamese garments in Asia./.