Textiles exports toast stellar 2013 performance   Employees of Duc Giang Garment Company at work. Viet Nam's garment and textile export is expected to exceed the US$19 billion target by a billion dollars more. - VNA/VNS Photo Tran Viet HA NOI (VNS)- Viet Nam's textile and garment industry expects to surpass its initial 2013 export target of US$19 billion by an extra by $1 billion. Pham Xuan Hong, deputy chairman of the Viet Nam Textile and Garment Association (Vitas), said the textile and garment industry, despite of many challenges in production and business, was one of two industries reaching more than $10 billion in export value for this year's first nine months. Hong said the industry expected to achieve an annual growth rate of 15 per cent in export value for the year due to the Government's export promotion policies and the textile and garment enterprises' efforts. As a result, it will add $1 billion to its initial export value target to bring the industry's total export value to $20 billion for the whole year. Nguyen An, general director of the Saigon Garment Production and Trading Joint Stock Company, said the company found new partners at a fashion fair held in the US in August and it expected to get new export orders and expand production by year's end. In addition, the localisation rate for export products has increased 40-50 per cent against the previous year's 20-30 per cent, Hong said. This caused imports of material and sub-materials to fall, an advantage for the textile and garment industry in export activities once Viet Nam joins the Trans Pacific Partner Agreement, he said. The industry has paid attention to investment in design, production and new production technology to improve the quality and value of those products. However, Hong said local producers must compete with rivals from other countries, such as Bangladesh, India and Cambodia, in export pricing due to higher salaries for workers in Viet Nam over other countries. Local producers have also faced difficulties in sourcing and importing material and sub-material for making textile and garment products due to competition with other countries in the region. The Ministry of Industry and Trade's statistics show that in the first nine months of this year, the textile and garment industry earned an export value of $13 billion, up 18 per cent from the same time last year. The US, the EU, Japan and the Republic of Korea were the biggest importers of Vietnamese textiles and garments, with exports to these markets accounting for 49, 15, 12 and 9 per cent of the industry's export revenue, respectively. - VNS