Spotlight on an emerging market: Assessing the footwear and apparel industries in Vietnam

Multinational corporations and foreign direct investment have played a key role in Vietnam's transformation into a high-potential, full-scale manufacturing emerging market. Yet, there are few US companies operating in Vietnam, even though trade relations between the two nations have been normalized since 1995 and English is now the second language of choice in Vietnamese business circles. To date, neither Vietnam's status as an emerging market nor the growing sophistication of its businesses and consumers have been well investigated. Recent research and interviews with Vietnamese executives reveal that Vietnamese factories and value chains have undergone substantial transformation since their turbulent early days, and the nation's low-cost labor pool makes it a desirable manufacturing location for the footwear and apparel industries. The challenge for such an emerging market is to leverage its current competitive advantage into a sustainable development model. To that end, businesses, policymakers, and government will need to deploy a long-term strategy that will bring the domestic infrastructure and education to the next level. � 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.