According to statistics from the General Administration of Customs of Vietnam, in June, 100 Vietnamese companies exported a total of 236 million medical masks, an increase of 30% from the previous month. In the first half of the year, a total of 557 million medical masks were exported.

With the advantage of cheap labor, the textile industry has become the third pillar industry of Vietnam’s exports, and Vietnam has also become the world’s third largest exporter of textiles and clothing, second only to China and India. Statistics show that Vietnam’s total textile exports in 2019 reached USD 39 billion. Among them, the European and American markets are important markets for Vietnam’s textile exports.

 

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, Vietnam, as the world’s third largest textile exporter, has suffered heavy losses due to the loss of textile orders. In order to meet the needs of pandemic prevention, Vietnam has continuously expanded the production capacity of masks and regarded it as one of the measures for textile companies to diversify their operations, increase exports, and overcome difficulties. Since April, as the pandemic in Vietnam has been better controlled, the export of masks has risen sharply. In April and May, 140 million and 182 million medical masks were exported respectively. Countries and regions such as the United States, Germany, Singapore and South Korea are the main markets for Vietnam’s mask exports.

 

However, experts said that although Vietnam has advantages in the production scale of the textile industry, there are still obvious shortcomings in the industrial chain, such as the lack of the ability to produce raw materials, and the need to import large quantities from abroad every year.