Vietnam punishes officials in textile and garment export scandal
A Trade Ministry official was fired and another was suspended for allegedly soliciting up to US$1 million in bribes from Vietnamese textile and garment companies seeking approval to ship their products to the United States, officials said Wednesday.
Le Van Thang, 50, deputy director of the ministry's Import and Export Department, was suspended Monday and had his Communist Party membership revoked pending a police investigation, the ministry official said on condition of anonymity. Department staff member Bui Hong Minh, 33, was fired the same day, she said. So far, nine people have been arrested including Thang, Minh and executives of local garment companies who allegedly acted as brokers in the scam. No charges have been filed.
State-controlled media have reported that Thang and his associates allegedly received up to US$1 million (euro 820,000) from the companies in exchange for allocating quotas on shipments to the United States, which Thang was in charge of issuing. In response, the ministry has set up a task force comprised of officials from the trade and industry ministries, as well as representatives from the Textile and Garment Association, to supervise the quota allocations.
Last year, the U.S. imposed quotas of US$1.7 billion (euro 1.4 billion) a year on Vietnamese textiles and garments to curb a surge in imports.
The Associated Press - September 22, 2004
Vietnam : garment industry needs qualified technicians
Vietnam’s garment and textile export has tremendous potential but lacks genuine sources for high quality material supplies, qualified technicians and fashion designers.
Its garment industry has mostly done out-sourced work for foreign partners due to a near dormant cloth-dyeing sector. The textile-dyeing industry recently has undergone technological upgradation of its facilities by almost 50 percent,but technicians lack professional skill and competencies.Most technicians have no ability or skills to master technology resulting in low efficiency in productivity when using new facilities and advanced technology. Optimal capacity utilization of operational equipment barely reaches between 70-80 percent capacity, while products manufactured cannot fully meet market demand and international standards.
Older technicians and workers involved in fibre-textile-dyeing area for garment manufacturers have gained a lot of experience from production processes but are weak in updating new technology due to their lack of knowledge about new technology. Meanwhile, younger technicians have more up-to-date education and are faster at updating new technology, but lack practical experience and often have to undergo extra training from three to six months.
Another factor is that although 80 percent of garments produced in Vietnam are for export; where foreign partners provide all the designs, styles and materials. Vietnamese businesses only make products based on available designs so their capacity to design fashionable products,especially clothing for daily life, is very limited.Due to its low ability to adapt industrial production process, Vietnam’s garment industry fails to make key products, which bear their own trademarks and capture the world market’s attention.High quality products with good designs made by the Vietnamese companies therefore often feature renowned foreign trademarks such as Pie Cardin, Nike and Valentino.
In order to stem the rot, the Vietnam Garment and Textile Corporation and the Vietnam Garment and Textile Association nurturing fashion designers through garment and fashion schools in Hanoi and HCM City.
However, due to limitations in training capacity, such schools only provide tailoring and fashion knowledge and cannot train high-skilled professional fashion designers. Most good fashion designers in Vietnam either learnt through many years of practical experience for many years or were trained at fine art industry schools and then further studied fashion afterwards. Hence, the basic training of fashion designers is a great challenge for the garment industry in the future.
Fibre2fashion.com - September 20, 2004
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