By Van Nam - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC – The garment and textile industry has been performing well this year to date, with stable production and sharply rising export revenue, according to the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association.
Le Quoc An, chairman of the association, told the Daily on Tuesday that the garment and textile industry attained export revenue of some US$1.5 billion in the first two months, a 16.8% year-on-year increase. He expected the industry to obtain export revenue of some US$2.4 billion for the first quarter, a 16% year-on-year increase. 
owever, if the industry wants to earn US$10.5 billion in export revenue this year as earlier targeted, it must quickly reverse the worker shortage at many garment enterprises, particularly at industrial parks and export processing zones, according to the association.
Currently, most garment enterprises in the country have had very stable production. Many enterprises have orders until September, particularly for cotton-yarn cloth.
An also said the association would continue to encourage its members to relocate their factories to provinces and rural areas where they could employ more workers.
The high export growth for the apparel industry is attributed to the global economic recovery, prompting orders to increase.
However, the country’s overall export performance is forecasted to grow little in the first quarter.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade projects export revenue of US$14.2 billion in the first quarter of this year, a slight increase compared to US$14.1 billion in the same period of last year.
In Jan-Feb, the country obtained export revenue of US$8.9 billion, up by 0.1% compared to the same period of last year.
In the first two months of this year, the export revenue of many products such as fuels, minerals, industrial goods, crude oil and rice fell considerably year-on-year, according to the ministry.
However, some products had a remarkable export increase in the two months, including aquatic products (by 19.2%), garments and textiles (16.8%), footwear (4%), wooden products (29%) and electronic components (30.6%).
The ministry also predicts that the country’s import expenditure this quarter would be US$16.8 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of US$2.6 billion.