Illustrative image (Source: internet)According to VPA President HoDuc Lam, Japan, with ademand of 8 billion USD worth of plastic products each year, remains apromising market for Vietnam’splastic. However, the market has high requirements for quality, which poses achallenge to the majority of Vietnamese firms, he added.
Meanwhile, the US market hascontinued applying the anti-dumping duty on plastic bags, causing difficultiesfor the export of the product to the market. But the country still importsother products, such as canvas, home plastic and plastics used for packaging,along with plastic films.
The EU market has a highdemand for plastic products, he said, adding that it has not levied the anti-dumpingtax on Vietnamese products.
Lam also noted difficultiesfacing local producers, including the large amount of imported input materials,which has reduced the sector’s competitiveness and made it difficult to takeadvantages of tariff preferences.
Changes in material pricesand currency exchange rate also impacted the sector significantly, he said.
According to the VPA, in2016, the plastic sector earned 2.54 billion USD from exports, a slight risecompared to 2.4 billion USD in 2015, including 2.1 billion USD from exports ofproducts and 345 million USD from material exports.
In the year, Japan, the US and the EU were the largest marketsof Vietnamese plastic. In the Japanese and EU markets, Vietnamese products madea slight growth, due to a fierce competition there and the fluctuating currencyexchange rate. Meanwhile, a high growth of 7.8 percent was achieved in the US market. -VNA
VNA
