Vietnam surpasses Bangladesh as world's second-largest garment exporter

Bangladesh had been the world’s second-largest garment exporter since 2010, according to World Trade Organization (WTO) rankings. However, Bangladesh has lost its rank to Vietnam after the latter sold $29 billion worth of apparel merchandise to the world in 2020. Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s ready-made garment exports were valued at $28 billion last year.

Due to the impact of the pandemic, both Vietnam and Bangladesh suffered a decline in garment exports. However, Bangladesh posted a stronger decline.

Vietnam accounted for 6.4 per cent of global garment exports last year while Bangladesh's share is 6.3 per cent. Indeed, Vietnam has received a large number of orders that were shifted away from China at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak.

China remained the world's largest apparel exporter in 2020 with 31.6 per cent of the global total. China exported $142 billion worth of apparel merchandise last year, a decrease of 7 per cent on-year.

WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said that, "Trade began to recover as of mid-2020, but the effects of COVID-19 have varied significantly across countries and regions. In volume terms, which strip out the effects of fluctuating prices, Asia’s merchandise trade was down by only 0.5 per cent in 2020, compared to the global decline of 5.3 per cent."

Vietnam’s garment-textile export turnover reached nearly $19 billion in the first six months of 2021, an increase of over 20 per cent on-year. The positive result was attributed to early post-pandemic recovery of markets.