Although Vietnam was ranked among the top ten in apparel exports to the European Union in 2015, it was outperformed by one of its neighboring countries.

The Vietnam Textile & Apparel Association (VITAS) reported in its statistics on Tuesday last week that Vietnam was in sixth place in apparel export market share, but was ranked below Cambodia, raising surprise among experts.

In the EU region, China led the board with 36.9 percent, followed by Bangladesh, Turkey, India, Cambodia, and Vietnam, with 16.89, 11.62, 6.33, 3.64, and 3.45 percent respectively, according to the statistics.

Despite a 5.01 percent increase in export turnover and a 3.21 percent rise in total goods exported in comparison with 2014, Vietnam’s shipments only occupied 3.45 percent of the textile market share in the EU last year, according to the statistics.

While the average unit price of Cambodian garments and textiles was lower than that of 2014, Cambodia’s market share was 3.64 percent in the EU, 0.19 percent higher than Vietnam’s.

In 2015, the EU imported US$3.11 billion worth of apparel from Vietnam, and products from Cambodia accounted for $3.27 billion.

In Jan-Feb this year, Vietnam’s total garment and textile export turnover topped $3.6 billion, 12.4 percent higher than the same period in 2015.

Despite this, most Vietnamese exporters said their unit price tended to level off while some even had to lower their rate by 0.5 to one percent.

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