HCMCity (VNS/VNA) - The textile and apparel industry, which managed tosurvive three waves of COVID-19 thanks to its decision to produce face masksand personal protective equipment, will focus on sportswear and yarn, accordingto the Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group.

Le Tien Truong, its general director, said demand for face masks and personalprotective equipment will shrink rapidly.

Armed with their experience of coping with the pandemic, many textile andfootwear enterprises are quietly confident of altering plans when required andfinding new markets to cope with new situation after COVID-19 is under control.

Sportswear has arguably been the most successful segment during the pandemic asawareness of physical exercise rose.

According to Euromonitor International, in 2020 the demand for sportswearworld-wide decreased only about 8 percent, the lowest in an industry whichsaw an overall decline of 16 percent.

The compounded annual growth rate for the sportswear market in the last fiveyears was 6.5 percent, 1.5 times the industry average, and it is expected to beworth 479 billion USD globally by 2025.

The Thanh Cong Textile Garment Investment Trading JSC is considered one of themost successful businesses in 2020 thanks to seizing opportunities to exportCOVID-19 related apparel products such as fabric masks and PPE.

But Tran Nhu Tung, its deputy general director, said the demand for cloth masksand protective gear is returning to pre-COVID levels with the advent ofvaccines. This year his company has stopped taking orders for medicalprotective gear and antibacterial masks.

It is focusing on traditional products such as T-shirts and sportswear, demandfor which would continue to increase, and there are already enough orders forsportswear for the first 6 months of the year, he said.

According to the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association, many businesses nowhave orders for until the end of April, mainly for sportswear.

Dang Trieu Hoa, general director of the The Ky Yarn Joint Stock Company, saidhis company plans to focus on yarns with high quality and competitive prices.

The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) that took effect on August 1 lastyear has reduced tariffs on Vietnam’s garment exports by more than 70percentage points.

The footwear and textile sectors also benefit significantly from tariff cuts,according to Bao Viet Securities Joint Stock Company.

With most other countries that export textile and garment to the EU not havinga trade deal with the bloc, the EVFTA has opened up a great opportunity for Vietnam’sfootwear, textile and garment exports if companies meet origin requirements, itadded./.