Vietnam's textile and apparel exports reached approximately $35.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2026, growing year-on-year, but the internal structure shows clear divergence—exports of fibers and yarns are growing far faster than garments.

Key points

  • From January to September 2026, Vietnam's textile and apparel exports totaled about $35.7 billion, with garment export growth at only low single digits, while fibers and yarns led by a wide margin.
  • TexPro data shows that from January to July 2026, China's purchases of selected yarn categories accounted for more than the entire net increase in Vietnam's yarn exports, indicating high concentration.
  • Nonwoven fabric exports grew, but dependence on fabric imports and squeezed profit margins expose gaps in Vietnam's domestic industrial chain integration.

Looking at Vietnam's overall textile and apparel export picture, the roughly $35.7 billion result in the first three quarters of 2026 continued the growth trend. But after breaking down the category structure, the temperature gap between garments and upstream fibers and yarns is quite obvious: garment exports achieved only slight growth, while fiber and yarn export growth reached several times that of garments, becoming the main driver of overall exports. Nonwoven fabric exports also rose, reaching the hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars level.

Behind this divergence, the Chinese market played a key role. According to TexPro trade data, from January to July 2026, the amount of selected yarn categories China purchased from Vietnam already exceeded the entire net increase in Vietnam's exports of such yarns. In other words, the increase in Vietnam's yarn exports was almost entirely contributed by demand from China alone. This highly concentrated single-market structure poses a direct risk to the stability of Vietnam's yarn exports once demand-side fluctuations occur.

At the same time, the long-standing structural weaknesses of Vietnam's textile industry have not been eliminated. The fabric segment still requires large volumes of imports, and domestic supply cannot meet garment production demand, resulting in a limited proportion of value added from upstream and downstream links being retained within Vietnam. Fabric imports combined with rising costs further squeeze profit margins in the garment segment.

Yarn growth outpacing garments appears on the surface to be a set of impressive export figures, but in essence it reflects the disconnect between the raw material end and the finished product end of Vietnam's textile industry: upstream yarns are rapidly expanding volume on the back of external demand, while downstream garments find it difficult to expand in sync due to insufficient fabric support. For operators engaged in used clothing and textile raw material trade, this means Vietnam's role as a yarn supplier is strengthening, while the competitiveness of the garment processing segment remains constrained by dependence on fabric imports. Regional procurement and capacity layout need to take this structural gap into account.

Source: Why yarn grows 6x faster than garments in Vietnam's $35.7 bn sector · Originally published 2026-10-12