A website of the Apparel News Group in California, the US has said that textile and apparel products have surpassed crude oil to top the list of Vietnam’s major export items.

According to the Apparel News Group, Vietnam’s textile and garment sector has earned US$7.5 billion from exports in the past ten months of this year after the US Government stopped Import Monitoring Programme for Textile and Apparel from Vietnam early this year.

For fear of cut-price Vietnamese products being dumped on the US market, the former President George. W. Bush administration had decided to apply anti-dumping measures against Vietnam right after its entry into the World Trade Organisation in January 2007. Since then, every six months, the US Department of Commerce (DOC) conducted five investigations into five categories of products, including trousers, shirts, underwear, swimming suits and sweaters. However, it did not find any evidence of Vietnam’s cut-price sales.

The website said after the programme was removed many US garment companies have felt secure about trading with Vietnam, which is considered as the second biggest supplier after China.

Early in November, Le Quoc An, president of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (Vitas) was quoted as saying textile and apparel products continued expanding their market shares in the US and that it was feasible to achieve the projected target for US$9.2 billion export earnings in 2009.