TEX-FILE
US imports jeans from Vietnam |
Total |
Women |
Men |
Value |
2014 |
18.94 |
11.24 |
7.70 |
170.49 |
2015 |
19.13 |
13.38 |
5.75 |
162.20 |
2016 |
20.48 |
14.16 |
6.32 |
176.95 |
2017 |
25.37 |
16.73 |
8.52 |
212.82 |
( Quantity in million pieces) |
( Value in million US $) |
but even in that case, price is good. All Vietnamese are very well-versed with Chinese mills but not with Indian Mills so we have the limitation of getting new contacts by participating at sourcing event, only.” Expecting 30 to 40 per cent growth in orders from Vietnam, the company is as of now managing its logistics well, as most of the demand it gets is for regular products and there is a concerted effort to push for early confirmation of order. KG Fabriks claims to use only 3 litres of water to produce one metre of denim fabric. Use of sulphur colour rather than reactive is another attraction of the company’ s products. Maximum stretch through advanced technology, but with minimum spandex, is the company’ s other interesting offering.
Similarly, another Indian mill Anubha Industries, Surat( Pratibha Group) which is pushing its offerings into this market from last three years, is now geared up for good business. The company is in the process to start its office in Vietnam and is looking to hire local professionals. Amit Desai, Sr. Manager – Export Marketing of the organisation shares,“ We are continuously meeting with new buying houses, brands and jeans manufacturers here and exchanging ideas in product requirement and our offering. With our local office and Vietnamese professionals, we
ESSENTIALS
• Through Vietnam, some of the Indian mills are also able to tap few clients of Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia.
• Vietnamese brands insist for darker shades which make them different from other countries. Slub effect and higher width fabric are more in demand here.
( L-R): Bhavesh Patel, Manager Marketing, Anubha Industries; Alok Kumar Trivedi, Country Manager, Gateway Next Ltd.; and Amit Desai, Sr. Manager – Export Marketing, Anubha Industries will definitely get a much better response as there is a lot of potential here and they are now seriously looking for Indian fabric.” Amit feels that duty structure of Vietnam is an issue in importing Indian fabric. The company is discussing this issue with associations. Known for sustainable denim and piece-dyed fabric, the company is GOTS, Oeko-Tex and OCS certified, producing 20 lakh metre of fabric per month. It is promoting wider width denim as it helps the jeans manufacturers to reduce their cost.
Like the above-mentioned mills, Aarvee Denims & Exports, Ahmedabad too has been exploring this market with comparatively limited focus, but is now geared up with full preparations and getting positive indications too. Recently participating for the first time at the denimsandjeans event, the company initiated its first ever big effort for Vietnam. Pankaj V. Arora, VP – Marketing of the company shared the reasons for larger focus on Vietnam now.“ We were working with many brands of late through Bangladesh. Significantly, Bangladesh and Vietnam are working on a very similar model in terms of garment export; Vietnam is catching up with Bangladesh so we felt that it is high time for our company to be present effectively in Vietnam,” he explains.
Having expertise in cotton spandex with the lowest shrinkage, Aarvee Denims researched about Vietnam and realised that overall there is stiff competition from China. Accordingly, it plans to encounter this challenge by focusing on the company’ s strength which is 100 per cent cotton and cotton spandex base. With regard to the company’ s strategy to surmount challenges in this market, he says,“ Compared to China, we have an edge in logistics in case of Bangladesh, yet China is doing very good business with Bangladesh, so similarly we do the same with Vietnam. We are building our base for handling the Vietnam market and I am sure that we will succeed.” Pankaj further added that initially, the company will focus on such range of fabrics which can be delivered much faster and can be also produced within the less lead time.“ We have price advantage over China so the customer will bear with us a little bit on logistic disadvantage, hence it seems to be a win-win situation for us as well as Vietnamese
Pankaj V. Arora, VP – Marketing, Aarvee Denims & Exports
Sandeep Agarwal, Founder, denimsandjeans. com
garment exporters,” adds Pankaj. As the company is working with some of the most-toughest countries of the world like Latin America, language is not a big issue for them.
Sandeep Agarwal, Founder, denimsandjeans. com who is connecting denim mills from across the globe with Vietnam through his event, also feels that language is not a problem and it is easy to find good professionals in Vietnam who can work for Indian companies; they just need to use them correctly and that will open all the channels. According to him, the logistics issue he adds needs to be tackled through collective approach or in support with trade associations.“ Traditional ways of working will not work here in Vietnam, so new and collective efforts will open the gate and clients will have more confidence in Indian companies. China is now getting out of the race slowly and buyers are looking for a replacement, so this is the best time for Indian companies to explore Vietnam,” concludes Sandeep.
www. apparelresources. com | JULY 16-31, 2018 | Apparel Online India 23