When it comes to the apparel market of the United States of America (USA), considered a major export destination for both Bangladesh and Vietnam — Vietnam and Bangladesh are considered competitors in the realm of apparel manufacturing and exports — Vietnam seems to have prevailed over Bangladesh last year as it captured the opportunities and gained most from China’s losing market share in the US even as Bangladesh, which ranks second in global apparel trade, reportedly, failed to capitalise on China slowly losing grip on the all-important US market.
This was maintained in recent media reports which cited data from the US Department of Commerce’s Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA) to drive home the point.
The reports stated that as per OTEXA, China lost its market share by about 3 percentage points to 23.7 per cent in 2020 and from over US $ 64 billion of apparel imports by the USA in 2020, China solely supplied 23.7 per cent (in 2019, it was US $ 13.6 billion) even as Vietnam’s market share rose to 19.2 per cent from 16.2 per cent (Vietnam has captured the opportunities and gained most from China’s losing market share in the US), while Bangladesh’s market share in the US increased by a meagre 1.08 percentage points to 8.16 per cent in 2020, claimed the reports.
Meanwhile, speaking to the media, Managing Director of Snowtex, SM Khaled, reportedly, maintained that after the US-China trade conflict, a good number of Chinese investors relocated garment factories to Vietnam due to its readiness in entertaining investment and proximity even as he said that Vietnam bought raw materials from China within a shorter period, while it takes less time than Bangladesh to ship goods to the US (as it has a deep-sea port), besides the fact that workers’ productivity and efficiency in Vietnam was much higher compared to their Bangladeshi compatriots whilst Vietnam’s investment capacity is also higher than Bangladesh, all of which combined together, helped Vietnam to grab more market share, Khaled felt.
