National Assembly Chairman Vương Đình Huệ visits Việt Nam Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex) on Tuesday. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vương Đình Huệ told the Việt Nam Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex) to build a Vietnamese fashion brand, focusing on the domestic market of nearly 100 million people and at the same time pay attention to export markets.

During a New Year visit to Vinatex yesterday morning, Huệ praised the group for its achievements in 2021 despite the impact of COVID-19.

According to the NA chairman, under the impacts of the pandemic, textile was one of the most severely-hit sectors in 2021 - the toughest year for business production.

In almost all months of the third quarter, member enterprises of Vinatex in 19 southern localities had to suspend operations while Bắc Giang and Bắc Ninh provinces in the north experienced 40 days of lockdown. There was a time when 60,000 labourers or 40 per cent of the workforce of the group had to suspend work.

Citing the idiom “Fire proves gold, adversity proves men”, Huệ said the group had overcome challenges and hit over US$4.5 billion of export turnover in the whole year, exceeding the figure made in 2019.

He noted that the Vietnamese textile and garment sector still maintained global supply chains and did not disrupt regional value chains. Việt Nam was rated by customers to be one of 27 countries and territories with the best shopping destinations in 2021, surpassing many textile and garment powers.

“This is a miracle that surprised lots of people, including major competitors in the world,” he said.

Huệ spoke highly of the contributions and leading role of Vinatex in the general success of the sector. In 2021 the group scored the highest performance in the past 25 years with growth 2.5 times higher than 2020.

He asked the group to learn from experience, grasp opportunities and trends of national and global supply chain changes, and take a leading role in technology application and new product development.

Vinatex was told to take advantage of supportive packages offered by the NA and soon ensure recovery.

Besides export markets, Vinatex needs to pay more attention to the domestic market of 100 million people with high demand for product quality and quantity, creating conditions for Vietnamese people to access Vietnamese textile and garment products with good quality and reasonable prices, he said.

He believed that Vinatex can gradually reach a higher level in the value chain in terms of design and branding and improve the added value of Vietnamese textile products.

“As the group is the nucleus and the driving force of the Vietnamese textile and garment industry, Vinatex has the capacity and conditions to achieve these goals,” he said. — VNS