VietNamNet Bridge – Reports of Guang Dong-made clothes for children containing toxic substances were thought would create a golden opportunity for local garment producers to regain the domestic market. However, domestic producers of children’s clothes have not seized the moment.

Golden opportunities missed

Bich Ngoc, an officer in HCM City, said that last week she sought to purchase made-in-Vietnam clothes for her three-year old daughter, but she could not find anything suitable. Ngoc said that she decided to use Vietnam-made products for her daughter after she heard about formaldehyde in Guang Dong-made products.

Ngoc said that the products she found at An Dong Market were either too rigid or too thick. In fact, she found some suitable designs, but there was nothing that fit her daughter.

Meanwhile, Ngoc said, it would be much easier to get suitable China-made products, as the clothes are very attractive in colour, and more importantly, they are 30 percent cheaper than domestically-made products.

Lan Thanh, the owner of a children’s clothing shop at An Dong Market, said that domestic producers have difficulty meeting the demands and tastes of consumers. Domestic products do not have diverse designs, which explains why Vietnamese consumers now only use cotton home-wear clothes amid a lot of products.

Meanwhile, well-known Vietnamese trademarks like Viet Thy Kid, Kico, Hoa Kim, Nhat Tan and IF are available at just a few supermarkets and shops.

What to do to grab opportunities?

Local enterprises, when criticised about the failure to conquer the domestic market, explain that children’s clothing proves to be really a difficult field for them as they do not have information about the actual demand of the market segment.

An official from the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (Vitas) has confirmed that very few enterprises choose to produce children’s clothing, because of ‘small profit and high risks’.

Nguyen Kim Hoa, Director of HCM City-based Hoa Kim Production and Trade Company, a producer of children’s clothes, said that she many times intended to ‘give up the game’ because of too many difficulties.

Her workshop can put out some 3,000 products a month now, 50 percent fewer than previously.

“The children’s clothing market has become dreadful as domestic producers have to compete with Chinese producers,” she said.

Domestic producers are now facing too many problems that hinder them from ‘attacking’ the domestic market. Their output is low, which makes production costs high. The currently applied payment method (retailers pay producers after they sell products) takes away a producer’s ability to decide when he wants to use his money.

“We really want to make products that are competitive with Chinese products. However, input material prices and many other expenses have become overly high,” she said.

VietNamNet/TT

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