Approximately 130 importers from Nigeria registered to take part in transactions with local exporters from the fashion industry during the Vietnam-Nigeria B2B Networking Webinar on fashion products on October 22-23. 

Vu Ba Phu, director of the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency (Vietrade)
addresses the event (Photo: thanhtra.com.vn)

The purpose of the event is to help both Vietnamese and Nigerian firms gain greater insights into each side’s needs and capacities, with the aim of signing business contracts and boosting the two-way trade turnover between both countries.

Vu Ba Phu, director of the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency (Vietrade), emphasised that the fashion industry has enjoyed rapid development in recent years and has played an increasingly important role in terms of the national economy.

At present, the Vietnamese textile and garment sector ranks among the world’s three largest exporters, behind only China and India, while the leather shoe sector is also listed among the world’s leading exporters.

Phu added that "Made in Vietnam" fashion products have gained a great deal of prestige and are capable of winning the trust of customers in the international market, with local businesses capable of meeting both orders in both small and large quantities.

Following the successful containment of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic, an improved investment environment, and the signing of FTAs, including the recently implemented the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), the fashion sector has attracted foreign capital flows from developed economies, such as Japan, the Republic of Korea, Italy, and Germany.

These moves have therefore contributed to expanding production scale, innovating technology, improving product design, and supplying greater capacity to the international market.

Muda Yusuf, director general of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, emphasized that there remains plenty of room for additional trade co-operation between both sides, adding that Nigeria has serves as a bridge to bring Vietnamese goods to several African nations.

In response, Vietnamese Ambassador to Nigeria Luong Quoc Thinh said that with a number of spearhead economic sectors, local enterprises businesses are ready to co-operate alongside businesses from across the world, including Nigeria.

As such, plenty of Nigerian businesses have expressed a keen interest in Vietnamese fashion products, using the event as a platform to exchange details about materials, designs, and procedures for ordering and delivering products.