Despite being a textile exporter with a turnover of up to tens of billions of US dollars per year, Vietnam is still only known to the world as a country specializing in product processing. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, this comes from the fact that Vietnam is only active in about 30-40% of domestic raw materials.
Specifically, Vietnam can only supply 0.2% of the demand for cotton, 30% of the demand for fiber, the rest must be imported from the US, China and Taiwan, etc. Yarn output reaches 1.4 million tons per year. but more than 70% of which is exported due to low quality, unable to meet domestic demand. In particular, the majority of enterprises in the industry are small and medium-sized enterprises, with limited capital, so investment in research and technology has not been focused.
Meanwhile, according to Mr. Tran Nhu Tung - Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS), cum Director of the Committee for Sustainable Development, businesses must escape the "outsourcing" life be proactive in their raw materials and there must be an investment in research and development (R&D).
However, investing in R&D requires "long-term" capital and not all businesses can do it. Not to mention, to develop Vietnam's textile and garment industry, in addition to the above factors, it also requires close cohesion and cooperation between businesses, researchers, and training schools.
In this regard, Ms. Bui Mai Huong - Dean of Faculty of Fashion Design, University of Science and Technology - affirmed that it is necessary to strengthen the linkages to focus on investing in R&D together. Because in the textile industry, machinery is no longer the only factor that needs to be invested and developed, but besides, it needs to invest in R&D. In that spirit, the actual research and product development to find the right solution for society became the trend of students, instead of just paying much attention to the values of personal benefits as before.
At Polytechnic University, a group of fashion research students have been researching and developing fabrics, fibers, from nature as well as discovering a method to reuse coconut shells to make fabric fibers, … However, these research results have not been really commercialized to be applied to production and need the cooperation of enterprises,"- Mrs. Mai Huong regrets.
Mint yarn product
Realizing the limitations of Vietnam's textile and garment industry, over the past time, many textile and garment enterprises have promoted the localization of raw materials and accessories, and at the same time closely linked with schools to find talents and improve quality, increase production. For example, Thanh Cong Textile - Investment - Trade Joint Stock Company (TCM), according to Mr. Tran Nhu Tung - Chairman of the Board of Directors of TCM, has invested billions of dollars in R&D annually recruits students of the University of Science and Technology to allow them to research fabrics that are both environmentally friendly and highly applicable.
Or with Faslink, it is also a pioneer in investing heavily in R&D and launching into the market many "green" fabrics from lotus, coffee, mint, bamboo, etc., which have high applicability and are positively received by the market. "In the past 4 years, the consumer demand for sustainable fashion products has become clearer because more and more requirements for materials supply from domestic businesses have placed orders with us. It is estimated that in 2021 alone, we will supply the market with about 8 million meters of finished fabric materials of all kinds and all meet the green criteria "- a Faslink representative shared.
In fact, according to VITAS, the localization of materials and accessories and the "greening" of these products is an inevitable trend that Vietnamese enterprises must meet. Because in the world, the green transition of the fashion textile industry is increasingly obvious and consumers do not accept the use of fashion products of no clear origin, without environmental protection; Even if the enterprise employs workers not following international commitments, it will not be accepted.
The highly applicable design products in the Faslink collection in cooperation with talented young designers from green fabric (coffee yarn, mint yarn, oyster shell yarn, ..)
"We realize that there are many raw material suppliers like Faslink that are doing very well in researching and producing products that are suitable for the trends and tastes of customers. However, the market share of this industry is still very large, so it will be an opportunity if businesses continue to invest to catch it in time," VITAS representative said.
