On March 10-11, a delegation from the Vietnam Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex), led by Chairman Le Tien Truong, visited and assigned tasks at factories within the Southern Textile and Garment Corporation – Vinatex (VSC) in An Giang and Can Tho City.
Chairman Le Tien Truong of Vinatex works at the Vinatex Kien Giang Garment Factory.
During the meeting with the leadership and key staff of the Vinatex Kien Giang Garment Factory (Go Quao commune, An Giang province), Chairman Le Tien Truong acknowledged the efforts of the staff and workers after 10 years of construction and development, while emphasizing the need for a strong breakthrough in productivity to create a foundation for the factory's new development phase.
According to Chairman Le Tien Truong, after 10 years of operation, the appearance of the factory and the surrounding area has undergone many positive changes. The facilities are more spacious and modern, and the regional infrastructure has been significantly improved, creating favorable conditions for production activities. In particular, the improved transportation system has significantly shortened travel time from Can Tho City to the former Kien Giang province (now An Giang province), contributing to enhanced production linkages and market access.
Looking back at the factory's formation, Chairman Le Tien Truong stated that the project was implemented with a dual objective: to develop production and business while fulfilling the Group's political mission of supporting remote and disadvantaged areas with difficult economic conditions, helping to shift agricultural labor to industrial production (Region 30A). In reality, factories located in challenging areas such as Kien Giang, Vinh Thanh (Can Tho City), Son Dong (Bac Ninh), Bac Kan (Thai Nguyen), and Son Duong (Tuyen Quang) all face numerous challenges, from limited labor skills to ingrained agricultural production habits, making the process of establishing an industrial work ethic time-consuming.
Nevertheless, after 10 years of persistent development, Vinatex Kien Giang has gradually affirmed its position as a complete production unit, capable of competing equally with other factories in the system. The factory is no longer seen as a model supporting disadvantaged areas but has become a genuine production unit, participating in the overall production chain with standards for cost, productivity, and quality equivalent to other locations. This achievement is thanks to the great efforts of the entire staff and workers, especially the core management team who worked far from their families for many years to build the factory from its inception.
The Chairman of the Group stated that Vinatex Kien Giang is entering a new, favorable phase. After many years of operation, the workforce has stabilized and improved in skill, and labor productivity has gradually improved. At the same time, the depreciation costs of the initial project assets have decreased significantly, creating conditions for the factory to improve production efficiency. With its low operating costs, the factory only needs to achieve approximately 490-500 USD/CM/person to break even, much lower than units in urban areas, where the break-even point can reach 600-650 USD/CM/person. This is considered a significant advantage for future development.
However, along with the advantages come new requirements. According to Chairman Le Tien Truong, many equipment items in the project have entered the final stage of their lifecycle, requiring upgrading and refurbishment. Resources for this process need to be generated from production efficiency itself, through improving labor productivity and reducing costs. In the next five years – a crucial period when depreciation costs are low and the workforce is stable – the factory needs to set a strong breakthrough in labor productivity. Specifically, Vinatex Kien Giang needs to strive to increase the number of workers per person to a level equivalent to other units in the system, especially approaching the level of Vinatex Bac Lieu Factory (Bac Lieu ward, Ca Mau province), so that Vinatex Bac Lieu Factory can aim for a labor productivity target equivalent to garment factories in the Central region. This means that productivity needs to grow by about 20% to reach the target of approximately 580-600 USD per person per month. Simultaneously, the factory needs to optimize its workforce towards modern production, maintaining approximately 700-750 employees to effectively utilize its assets. The financial target is to raise the average income of employees to around 7-8 million VND/month, while striving to achieve a profit of approximately 11-12 billion VND per year for the entire factory.
Leaders of the Group and the Vietnam Textile and Garment Trade Union presented gifts to the staff and workers of Vinatex Kien Giang Garment Factory.
Chairman Le Tien Truong emphasized that the next five years will be a crucial period of accumulation to prepare for a new investment cycle after approximately 15 years of operation. When entering the reinvestment cycle, the factory must ensure efficient operation, accumulate capital, and eliminate prolonged losses. The Group's leadership also suggested that, when the factory achieves better performance in the future, attention should be paid to sharing the results with key personnel who have been with the company for many years, thereby creating motivation for them to continue to work alongside and sustainably develop the unit.
At the Vinatex Can Tho Garment Factory (Vinh Thanh commune, Can Tho city), Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vietnam Textile and Garment Group Le Tien Truong shared many important directions regarding the unit's development strategy in the coming period. According to the Chairman, after more than a decade of formation and development, the Vinatex Can Tho Garment Factory is facing much more favorable conditions than before to achieve breakthroughs.
First of all, the infrastructure and transportation conditions in the area have changed significantly. The completion of the highway system and connecting transportation has made travel between Can Tho and economic centers as well as seaports more convenient. This not only facilitates faster goods transportation but also makes it easier for customers, technical experts, and partners to access the factory, opening up many opportunities for cooperation and production development.
In addition, the workforce, after many years of dedication, has become increasingly committed, skilled, and experienced in production. This is an important foundation that helps the factory improve productivity, enhance quality, and increase competitiveness in the context of the garment industry demanding increasingly higher standards.
Another important factor is the growth of the Parent Company – VSC. According to Chairman Le Tien Truong, VSC's market capacity, production organization, and management have significantly improved in recent years. Better order preparation and more reasonable order values have created conditions for the subsidiary factories, including the one in Can Tho, to have more sustainable development opportunities. However, the Group Chairman also frankly stated that the factory needs to redefine its development goals and find out why it is still operating at a loss while other factories in the system are already profitable, and even that by 2025 the Parent Company will be highly efficient and among the top 10 units contributing significantly to Vinatex's profits. To address this issue, the Vinatex Can Tho Garment Factory should not see itself as limited by its current scale or only aim to maintain break-even or small profits. According to him, this approach is not consistent with the long-term development strategy of the garment industry. Instead, the Group's strategic goal is to build the Can Tho area into a major production center for basic garment products. With the advantage of land resources, a stable labor force, and reasonable costs, this area can develop production scale to approximately 2,000-3,000 workers in the future. If this scale is achieved, the economic benefits will be significant. Considering only the labor cost advantage, each 1,000 workers in this area could save approximately 5 billion VND in monthly salary costs compared to many other areas. When the scale increases to 2,000-3,000 workers, the savings could reach hundreds of billions of VND per year. This is a crucial competitive advantage, especially given that many manufacturing centers in major cities are facing labor shortages.
Chairman Le Tien Truong cited the case of Hung Yen – a region with high productivity and profits of approximately 100 billion VND per year, yet unable to expand beyond 1,700 employees due to a shortage of human resources. Labor costs in Hung Yen and surrounding areas can be 1.5 times, or even twice as high in some areas, compared to the Mekong Delta region – which still has ample labor potential, creating opportunities for the development of large production centers.
However, the Group's leadership emphasized that the prerequisite for expansion is that the current factory must operate efficiently and profitably. With approximately 850 employees currently, the factory's main task is to improve productivity, enhance production management, and control costs to achieve tangible results.
"We cannot 'inflate a bubble' when the existing model is still incomplete," Chairman Le Tien Truong stressed. According to him, the Group has ample financial capacity to invest in new factories, even allocating hundreds of billions of dong for expansion. However, the crucial issue is not the investment capacity but the ability to operate efficiently.
Therefore, thoroughly addressing existing production problems, identifying the root causes of limitations, and developing scientific management solutions are key tasks. Once the existing factory achieves real efficiency, expanding its scale and developing Can Tho into a major production center for VSC and Vinatex will become an inevitable step in the future.
Group leaders visit Vinatex Can Tho Garment Factory
Mr. Nguyen Hung Quy – General Director of VSC – informed that the Vinatex Can Tho Garment Factory has been in operation for a decade with approximately 850 employees, of which about 810 are currently working in production daily. In recent years, the unit's labor productivity has improved significantly, currently reaching approximately 500-550 USD per CM (Cost Per Person). Under normal production conditions, the break-even productivity level is around 530 USD per person, while achieving business efficiency requires approximately 550-560 USD per person. Financially, the factory is still facing many difficulties due to accumulated losses. Meanwhile, some other units have shown positive changes, notably the Vinatex Bac Lieu Garment Factory – which was once the most heavily loss-making unit but has now eliminated its accumulated losses and started making a profit of approximately 5.5 billion VND.
Nevertheless, VSC leaders believe that Vinatex Can Tho still possesses many important advantages. The factory has a favorable geographical location, a stable workforce, and high-quality workers. Notably, many customers visiting all three factories in the region choose Can Tho as their business location. Transportation infrastructure is becoming increasingly convenient with the area being near expressways, significantly shortening travel time. According to the General Director of VSC, the current shortage is a team of senior personnel and a high-quality workforce to lead the factory's breakthrough.
He also stated that after recognizing Vinatex Can Tho's prolonged difficulties, the management board directly surveyed the factory and implemented many solutions, from recruiting senior personnel, planning supply sources, improving productivity, and enhancing product quality. As a result, labor productivity has gradually improved, at times reaching 550–560 USD per person.
One of the important changes is the shift in management thinking and production organization. The factory's leadership no longer relies solely on traditional technical experience but is gradually applying modern management methods, increasing the use of specialized machinery and equipment, and simultaneously introducing science and technology and innovative improvements into the production line. According to Mr. Nguyen Hung Quy, production should be considered a scientific field, requiring careful planning and organization to develop optimal production plans. Labor productivity reflects intelligence, while product quality is the honor of the enterprise. Thanks to this orientation, the factory's labor productivity has improved significantly compared to the previous period, when it only reached about 300-400 USD CM/person.
Notably, this is the first time in 10 years that the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vinatex has directly visited and worked at the unit, which is expected to create new motivation for the staff and workers. Mr. Nguyen Hung Quy recalled the lesson from 2025, when a unit within the VSC system was given a very high profit target after a visit by the Group's leadership and subsequently not only achieved but exceeded the plan. Based on that experience, VSC aims for Vinatex Can Tho to at least reach the break-even point this year. The management board set a profit target of 8 billion VND, while the factory's board of directors developed a plan to strive for a profit of 16-17 billion VND.
The General Director of VSC expressed his expectation that with changes in management, technology, and the determined spirit of the workforce, this year will be a pivotal year for Vinatex Can Tho to achieve efficiency for the first time after a decade of operation, gradually eliminating losses and moving towards stable and sustainable development.
On the occasion of the Lunar New Year 2026, the Vietnam Textile and Garment Group and the Vietnam Textile and Garment Trade Union presented gifts to the leadership, staff, and workers of Vinatex Kien Giang Garment Factory and Vinatex Can Tho Garment Factory to acknowledge and encourage their creative and breakthrough work spirit from the very first months and quarters of the year.
