Nghe An textile industry: Close-up view
(Baonghean) -After the groundbreaking ceremony of Nam Dan textile cluster on March 26, 2011, many opinions said that the future of Nghe An textile industry is bright, but forgot a very gloomy reality. This article will take a close look and find out the reasons why it is still weak…
The bright reasons are summarized in a short time, in addition to 2,800 textile and garment production establishments in production, there are many more large projects including foreign direct investment with large capital, capable of attracting a lot of labor. Projects under construction or just started such as: Khai Hoan - Anh Son Export Embroidery Factory Project with an investment of more than 40 billion VND, attracting 2,000 workers; Minh Anh - Kim Lien Company Expansion Project with an investment of 20 billion VND, attracting more than 2,000 workers; PreX Vinh Company Limited Project in Lac Son Industrial Park with an investment of 240 billion VND, attracting more than 4,000 workers; HAIVINA Kim Lien Company Project in Nam Giang Commune with a total investment of 110 billion VND, attracting more than 4,000 workers; The Nam Dan Hanosimex Textile Project in Nam Giang, with an investment of 1,350 billion VND, attracts 2,000 workers. The figures reflect the production situation in the first 8 months of this year, which is worth our consideration.
According to the statistics of Nghe An Statistical Office, knitted products in August 2011 reached 160,000 products; including 8 months, the total was only 1.105 million products (the target set for this year is 16 million products). For yarn products, after 8 months, the output only reached 4,256 tons/284,000 tons of the plan. Textile products are estimated to reach only 4.166 million products/the yearly plan is 16 million products. Thus, there are only 4 months left until the end of the year, but only 15% and 25% of the yearly plan have been reached, while the planned number has only increased from 115% to 160% compared to last year.
Produced at Hoang Thi Loan Textile Joint Stock Company. Photo: Mai Hoa
In terms of export value, in 8 months, Nghe An textile and garment industry reached 3.690 million USD/130.540 million USD of total export goods of the province, equal to 2.85% of total export value. If compared with the export turnover of the textile and garment industry in the whole country, the export value of Nghe An is even insignificant. According to Mr. Vu Duc Giang, Chairman of Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association, in August 2011, the whole country exported 1.38 billion USD. Thus, our province is only equal to 3 thousandths!
Why do we have so many textile and garment manufacturing and trading enterprises, including large companies such as Hoang Thi Loan Textile and Garment Joint Stock Company, Kim Anh - Minh Lien Garment Joint Stock Company, Phu Vinh Company Limited... but the export volume is so small? Mr. Nguyen Van The, Head of the Industrial Management Department (Department of Industry and Trade) explained that: The number of our textile and garment enterprises generally produces by order processing method. This method only takes a small part of the top, very little profit. Recently, the textile and garment industry in the whole country has recovered, large companies have signed profitable contracts, but the processing units still have to wait slowly and passively. In the stages of textile and garment products, the design, raw materials, sewing (weaving) and circulation, the basic design part is theirs, the raw materials are also theirs and few units export directly. For raw materials such as fabric, buttons, and zippers, there should be auxiliary factories to be proactive and reduce costs, but because there are few products in Nghe An, it is not worth investing in a supply factory, so we have to import from other units.
The reason for the small quantity of products is that Nghe An is not near Hai Phong port. Although Nghe Tinh port is large, the export frequency is low, so it must be gathered at Hai Phong port, and the transportation cost is high. On the other hand, the cost of purchasing machinery and equipment in the textile industry is not large, but the skill is very important; while in our province, due to having to process unstable and constantly changing products, workers have little technical skills, low productivity and poor designs. In fact, large companies such as Hoang Thi Loan Textile Joint Stock Company, Kim Anh - Minh Lien Company, Phu Vinh Company Limited still often produce the main products: towels, shirts, jackets, children's T-shirts and clothes for primary and secondary school students... Low productivity, unstable products, so the life of garment workers in Nghe An is very low on average. According to statistics of Nghe An Trade Union, the average salary of the whole industry is only 1.7 million VND/month. There was a time when the salary was only 1.2 million VND/month. (The average salary of 3,700 textile and garment enterprises nationwide reached 2,500 million VND/person/month).
The weakness in export turnover, the disadvantage in the method of outsourcing production and the low average income of workers are the things we need to pay attention to. Recently, bank loan interest rates have decreased, businesses can borrow more working capital; on the other hand, the world economy has gradually recovered after the recession (the export capacity in 2011 of the whole country is forecasted to reach 13 billion USD), will Nghe An textile and garment industry be able to improve quickly to complete the yearly plan?
Thanh Nam
