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2026 In-depth Study of Vietnam's Footwear and Apparel Manufacturing: Green Transformation, Smart Automation Tsunami, and October Course Indicator
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2026 Vietnam Footwear and Apparel Manufacturing In-Depth Study: Green Transformation, Intelligent Automation Tsunami, and October Heading Direction Indicators
As a core OEM base for global first-tier fashion and sportswear giants such as Nike, Adidas, and Uniqlo, Vietnam's footwear and apparel manufacturing industry has long been deeply embedded in the global supply chain system, becoming a core pillar of light industry manufacturing in Southeast Asia. Entering 2026, Vietnam's footwear and apparel industry is at a critical intersection of global order recovery and deep regional supply chain restructuring. As the inventory destocking cycle in European and American end markets comes to an end, overseas brands' restocking demand is being released in a concentrated manner. Vietnam's textile and apparel, footwear, luggage, and bags export industry is ushering in a deterministic recovery in the second half of the year, with industry prosperity continuing to rise.
Beneath the surface of the industry's prosperous growth, deep-seated structural pain points continue to stand out, becoming the core bottleneck constraining the industry's high-quality development. The superposition of multiple pressures—including a structural shortage of local labor, rising labor costs year by year, continuously tightening green trade barriers in Europe and the United States, and a high dependence on imports for upstream raw and auxiliary materials—has thoroughly forced thousands of traditional OEM factories in Vietnam to bid farewell to the extensive manual production model and comprehensively accelerate their transformation and upgrading toward intelligent automated production and low-carbon green compliance systems. This industry-wide transformation is not a partial optimization, but a comprehensive industrial iteration covering production processes, equipment systems, supply chain supporting facilities, and compliance standards, reshaping the global competitive landscape of Vietnam's footwear and apparel industry.
In this critical period of industrial transformation, from October 14 to 17, 2026, the 24th Vietnam International Textile & Apparel Industry Exhibition (VTG) and the Vietnam International Footwear Materials & Machinery Exhibition (VFM), grandly held at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center (SECC) in Ho Chi Minh City, have become a core benchmark B2B trade platform for the global footwear and apparel supply chain to observe Vietnam's industrial transformation and capture opportunities in the Southeast Asian market, relying on full industry chain coverage, precise supply-demand matching capabilities, and industry authority, providing upstream and downstream enterprises with one-stop transformation and upgrading solutions. The exhibition's regular opening hours are from 9:00 to 17:00 daily, with the last day closing early at 15:00. A professional visitor admission system is implemented throughout, and persons under 16 years of age are prohibited from entering. It is open only to industry professionals, ensuring a high-end business matching atmosphere.
I. 2026 Vietnam Footwear and Apparel Market: Opportunities and Growing Pains in Parallel, Transformation Is Imminent
1. Exports Continue to Rise, Orders Continue to Concentrate in Southeast Asia
In 2026, Vietnam continues to solidify its core position as the world's second-largest footwear and apparel OEM base. Relying on stable industrial supporting facilities, a mature OEM system, and the "China+1" supply chain dividend, it continues to undertake the transfer of global textile, footwear, and apparel orders, demonstrating strong export market resilience.
In the textile and apparel sector, according to official statistics from the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS), Vietnam's textile and apparel exports reached 22.2 billion USD in the first six months of 2026, a year-on-year increase of 1.7%. Among these, exports of upstream supporting products such as fibers, fabrics, and auxiliary materials showed impressive growth, with increases ranging from 5.6% to 10.6%, demonstrating a development trend of gradually improving industrial supporting facilities. In the first seven months, the industry's export scale continued to expand, reaching 27 billion USD overall, maintaining a steady growth trend. At present, VITAS has clearly set its full-year sprint target, striving to reach an annual export value of 48–50 billion USD, with particularly outstanding performance in the U.S. export market, where the export share of apparel categories has increased significantly, becoming the industry's core growth engine. Meanwhile, in the first half of the year, imports of textile and apparel raw and auxiliary materials reached 13.24 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of 4.3%, which also indirectly confirms the market reality of full production orders and continuous capacity release in the industry.
The footwear and luggage sector has shown even stronger growth momentum. As the main force in the industry's exports, foreign-invested enterprises alone exported over US$15.5 billion worth of footwear and bags in the first eight months of 2026, with footwear exports contributing US$13.23 billion, occupying an absolutely dominant position. Relying on the capacity release of leading OEM manufacturers and the support of overseas orders, the entire industry is expected to break through a historic annual export high of US$29–30 billion, continuously consolidating Vietnam's core advantage in the global mid-to-high-end footwear OEM sector.
2. Three Major Structural Challenges Forcing the Industry to Break Through Its Development Threshold
Although the industry has sufficient orders and impressive export data, Vietnam's traditional pure OEM and labor-intensive development model has completely hit the growth ceiling. Three major structural shortcomings continue to amplify, forcing the industry to embark on systematic upgrading and transformation.
1) Normalization of labor shortages, with labor costs continuing to rise
In recent years, Vietnam's manufacturing industrial structure has continued to upgrade, and high-paying industries such as electronics and automobiles have expanded rapidly, continuously diverting the local working-age labor force and creating fierce talent competition with the footwear and apparel light industry. Coupled with consecutive increases in Vietnam's minimum wage standards and changes in the employment willingness of the new generation, the problem of skilled worker loss in traditional labor-intensive industries such as garment and footwear manufacturing has become increasingly serious, and the frontline labor gap continues to widen. Labor shortages not only lead to insufficient factory capacity flexibility and uncontrollable delivery cycles, but also continue to push up production labor costs, completely dissolving the price advantage of traditional OEM. "Machines replacing people" has become an inevitable choice for enterprises to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
2) Prominent shortcomings in upstream supporting facilities, weak supply chain autonomy and controllability
Vietnam's footwear and apparel industry has long focused on the downstream finished product assembly segment, leveraging efficient assembly capabilities to undertake global orders. However, there are obvious shortcomings in the upstream core industry chain, with core segments such as spinning, high-end functional dyeing and printing, eco-friendly new materials, and high-end accessories lagging in development. Industry data shows that 60%-70% of raw and auxiliary materials for Vietnam's footwear and apparel industry rely on imports, with the local supporting rate below 40%. This highly import-dependent industrial structure makes local factories extremely vulnerable to external factors such as geopolitical conflicts, fluctuations in international logistics prices, and shortages in overseas raw material supply. Supply chain stability is insufficient, and the supporting vacuum problem in the "China+1" supply chain layout continues to be prominent, severely constraining the industry's high-quality development.
3) European and American green trade barriers are tightening, and compliance has become the threshold for order access
The era of green compliance in the global textile, footwear, and apparel industry has fully arrived. Environmental regulatory policies in European and American markets continue to be implemented and tightened. New regulations such as the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles and the EUDR anti-deforestation regulation are being fully implemented, imposing mandatory requirements on the carbon footprint, raw material traceability, and environmental friendliness of production processes for imported footwear and apparel products. Meanwhile, leading international brands such as Nike and Adidas have incorporated ESG due diligence into the core criteria for supplier admission, order cooperation, and annual assessment. The current industry reality is clear: without green certification and without a carbon footprint traceability system, it is impossible to undertake high-end overseas orders, forcing Vietnamese OEM factories to rapidly obtain authoritative environmental qualifications such as GRS, GOTS, and ZDHC, and complete green upgrades of production processes and equipment.
II. Two Major Equipment Procurement Trends: Rigid Demand for Upgrading Vietnamese Factories Fully Erupts
Facing multiple industry dilemmas including labor shortages, rising costs, compliance pressure, and insufficient supporting infrastructure, thousands of large, medium, and small OEM enterprises in Vietnam have made intelligent and green equipment upgrading a core lever for breaking through and achieving breakthroughs. In 2026, industry equipment procurement demand is highly concentrated. Digital printing and dyeing automation equipment and AI intelligent footwear manufacturing machinery have become the core procurement hotspots at this edition of the VTG and VFM dual exhibitions, catering to the industry's core needs for small-batch quick response, low-carbon compliance, and cost reduction and efficiency improvement.
1. Digital Printing & Dyeing Automation: Adapting to Environmental Compliance, Empowering Small-Batch Quick Response
Tightening environmental policies and evolving market demand are jointly driving a comprehensive transformation of Vietnam's dyeing and printing industry. Currently, Ho Chi Minh City and surrounding core industrial provinces have explicitly restricted the addition and expansion of traditional high-pollution screen printing production lines, with old high-pollution capacity being gradually phased out, and the survival space for traditional dyeing and printing processes continuing to shrink. At the same time, the global footwear and apparel market is showing prominent trends toward personalization, niche segmentation, and rapid iteration. The proportion of orders featuring small batches, multiple batches, and short lead times continues to rise. The traditional production model of large batches, high pollution, and slow response has become completely ineffective, and digital printing equipment has entered a window period for large-scale adoption.
Currently, Vietnamese dyeing and printing enterprises have established clear mandatory standards for equipment procurement. All newly added equipment must be compatible with ZDHC MRSL Level 3 highest-grade eco-friendly inks, completely free of PFAS perfluorinated banned substances, and strictly comply with Vietnam's Chemical Law (No. 69/2025/QH15) to avoid export environmental risks. The core procurement hotspots at this exhibition are concentrated on high-end intelligent equipment such as waterless water-based pigment direct-to-garment printers and oval digital all-in-one machines. Such equipment can achieve printing from a single piece, instant drying after printing, and zero wastewater discharge throughout the process. It not only greatly reduces ink and water resource consumption and compresses production consumable costs, but also shortens order delivery cycles by more than 30%, perfectly adapting to the industry's current core needs for flexible production and rapid fulfillment.
2. Intelligent Footwear Manufacturing Machinery: Comprehensive Machine Substitution for Labor, AI Vision for Precision Production
In response to the core pain points of labor shortage and high labor costs, the core upgrading goal of Vietnam's footwear industry is clear and definite: replacing manual operations with automated and intelligent equipment to reduce labor usage per unit of product by 30%-40%, greatly reducing dependence on labor and improving production precision and efficiency. Currently, Vietnam's footwear industry shows an obvious polarized pattern, with a huge gap in automation levels between leading large factories and small and medium-sized factories.
Leading Taiwanese and Korean OEM giants such as Pou Chen, Feng Tay, and Thanh Le in core industrial clusters such as Binh Duong and Dong Nai are leading the pace of industrial upgrading. The coverage rate of robotic arms in core processes such as automatic glue spraying and roughing has reached 35%-50%, initially achieving semi-intelligent production. However, small and medium-sized factories, which account for more than 90% of Vietnam's footwear manufacturing market, have an overall automation rate of less than 8% and still rely mainly on purely manual and semi-manual old production lines. They are in a critical window period of upgrading from semi-automation to full intelligence, and the demand for equipment replacement is extremely strong.
In 2026, the mainstream new-generation footwear manufacturing machinery has completed technological iteration, fully equipped with 3D laser scanning + AI visual intelligence systems, capable of real-time dynamic identification of shoe shape deformation and size deviation, automatically adjusting glue spraying and cutting operation trajectories, with operation accuracy reaching ±0.5mm, far exceeding manual operation standards. At the same time, the new equipment is fully compatible with water-based and plant-based eco-friendly shoe adhesives, significantly reducing VOC exhaust emissions during production, meeting European and American low-carbon environmental compliance requirements. In addition, supercritical CO₂ physical foaming equipment is gradually replacing traditional chemical foaming machines, completely solving the high pollution and high energy consumption problems of traditional processes, becoming a standard upgrade for high-end shoe factories, helping enterprises open up green export channels.
III. VFM & VTG 2026 | Four Exhibitions Jointly Held, Creating a Flagship Event for the Footwear and Apparel Supply Chain
This industry event is professionally organized by Chan Chao International, adopting a four-exhibition concurrent linkage model of VTG Textile & Apparel Exhibition, VFM Footwear Materials & Machinery Exhibition, VITATEX Fabrics & Accessories Exhibition, and Dyechem Dyeing & Chemical Exhibition. The exhibition cluster effect and industry coverage capability are comprehensively upgraded, precisely covering over 70% of Vietnam's footwear and apparel production factories, connecting the entire industry chain closed loop from raw materials, dyeing and chemical auxiliaries, production equipment, finished product manufacturing to brand trade. It is one of the largest, most professional, and most efficient B2B trade platforms in the Southeast Asian footwear and apparel industry in 2026.
The exhibition implements a pre-registration admission system throughout. All visitors must fill in information online in advance, and enter by verifying their exclusive entry QR code. The QR code is only valid for the registered person themselves, strictly regulating the admission order of professional visitors throughout, ensuring the exhibition's high-end trade attributes.
(I) VTG Vietnam International Textile & Apparel Industry Exhibition: Focusing on the Full-Chain Upgrade of Textile Intelligent Manufacturing
VTG Vietnam International Textile & Apparel Industry Exhibition has been deeply cultivating the Southeast Asian textile market for nearly 20 years. It is a flagship full-industry-chain exhibition certified by UFI (The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry), with industry credibility and international influence ranking among the top of similar exhibitions in Southeast Asia. The exhibition precisely focuses on Textile 4.0 to 5.0 full-chain software and hardware solutions, deeply aligning with the core development trends of small-batch quick response, flexible production, intelligent management, and low-carbon compliance in the 2026 textile industry.
The exhibition's core exhibits comprehensively cover all textile production stages, including high-speed intelligent knitting equipment, digital spinning and weaving machinery, intelligent non-woven fabric production equipment, 3D intelligent body measurement and garment system, factory intelligent ERP digital management system, eco-friendly printing and dyeing equipment, and other cutting-edge technologies and complete sets of equipment, fully adapting to the differentiated upgrade needs of large, medium, and small textile factories.
The core commercial value of the exhibition directly addresses industry pain points, specifically solving core challenges for Vietnamese textile enterprises such as labor shortages, rising production costs, low production efficiency, insufficient digitalization, and difficult environmental compliance. It provides intelligent, digital, and green flexible production full-set solutions for global brands like Nike and Uniqlo, leading OEM factories, and small and medium-sized production enterprises, precisely matching the current footwear and apparel industry trends of lightweight, personalized, and fast-iterating products, helping enterprises seize the incremental market in the second half of 2026 and 2027.
Visitors can complete pre-registration through the official exclusive channel for convenient entry and exhibition networking:https://www.chanchao.com.tw/en/entryApply.asp?id=FTXTHCM2026
(II) VFM Vietnam International Footwear Machinery and Materials Industrial Exhibition: Full-domain Empowerment for Green and Intelligent Footwear Manufacturing Transformation
VFM Vietnam International Footwear Materials and Machinery Exhibition is the most influential professional trade platform in Southeast Asia for footwear manufacturing equipment, intelligent technology, and eco-friendly footwear materials. The exhibition precisely reaches over 70% of local footwear factories in Vietnam, deeply connects with the OEM systems of global footwear giants stationed in Vietnam, and precisely matches high-quality upstream and downstream industry resources.
The exhibition focuses on the three core development directions of the footwear manufacturing industry in 2026: green and low-carbon, intelligent and efficient, and compliant quality improvement. Core exhibits include supercritical physical foaming complete equipment, AI visual intelligent cutting and nesting equipment, fully automatic footwear molding production lines, ultra-light eco-friendly sole new materials, water-based non-toxic footwear adhesives, low-carbon footwear processing aids, and other core products and cutting-edge technologies, comprehensively covering the upgrade needs of the entire footwear manufacturing process.
The exhibition site will set up a live process demonstration area, dynamically showcasing the full-process intelligent and green footwear manufacturing process, intuitively presenting the production advantages of machine substitution, low-carbon production, and precise fulfillment. It can provide complete production solutions for cost reduction and efficiency improvement, environmental compliance, and quality upgrading for multinational OEM factories and local large, medium, and small footwear enterprises in Vietnam, precisely adapting to the production needs of globally popular thin-sole barefoot shoes and lightweight casual shoes in 2026, comprehensively meeting the ESG environmental compliance standards of European and American markets, and helping the industry complete green transformation and capacity quality upgrading.
Visitors can complete pre-registration through the official exclusive channel to unlock trade networking benefits:https://www.chanchao.com.tw/en/entryApply.asp?id=FVNFLM2026
(III) Precise Audience Matching, Two-way Empowerment for Supply and Demand Connection
Exhibitors: Quality suppliers of equipment and materials
This exhibition is open to global quality suppliers, covering intelligent knitting and sewing equipment, digital printing equipment, automated footwear manufacturing machinery, eco-friendly functional new materials, green dyeing and chemical auxiliaries, digital factory management systems, and other full-category manufacturers. The core value of exhibiting is highly targeted: it enables precise connection with leading OEM factories in multiple ASEAN countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and Bangladesh, deeply undertaking the billion-level equipment procurement needs for automation and green upgrading of Southeast Asian factories; at the same time, it directly faces core procurement personnel of European and American brand procurement offices in Vietnam, efficiently obtaining high-margin, fast-iterating quality overseas orders, and rapidly deploying in the Southeast Asian incremental market.
Professional Buyers: Factory decision-makers, brand core procurement teams
The professional audience at the exhibition is highly targeted, mainly covering core industry groups such as procurement executives from international first-tier footwear and apparel brands, founders of local Vietnamese and foreign-funded OEM factories, business owners, supply chain directors, production factory managers, engineering technical leads, and procurement decision-makers. Visitors can observe cutting-edge achievements including Textile 4.0 smart manufacturing production lines, fully automated intelligent footwear assembly lines, and low-carbon eco-friendly new materials all in one place. At the same time, in the Econogy Hub green exclusive exhibition area, they can verify on-site the full set of compliant equipment and materials such as GRS, GOTS, and ZDHC, efficiently solving enterprises' export ESG compliance challenges and precisely identifying the optimal solutions suitable for their own factory upgrades.
(4) Exhibition-Specific Business Notes
VFM&VTG 2026 is a high-end professional B2B trade exhibition with strict visitor admission rules: persons under 16 years of age are prohibited from entering; the exhibition hall has strict requirements for business attire, and persons wearing non-business attire such as slippers and shorts are not allowed to enter the exhibition hall, comprehensively ensuring a professional, high-end business matchmaking environment. All visitors must complete online pre-registration in advance and enter by verifying their own exclusive entry QR code. The QR code is for personal use only and may not be lent to others. The exhibition is open daily from 9:00 to 17:00, and on the last day (October 17), the closing time is moved up to 15:00. Visitors are advised to plan their visit reasonably.
Conclusion
The VTG and VFM dual exhibitions held at SECC in Ho Chi Minh City in October 2026 have long gone beyond the single attribute of a traditional trade exhibition, becoming a core practical stage for the global footwear and apparel supply chain to gain insight into Southeast Asia's industrial transformation, implement smart manufacturing, achieve green and low-carbon transformation, and match flexible quick-response production capacity. At present, Vietnam's footwear and apparel industry is in a critical cycle where pain and opportunity coexist and transformation and growth are intertwined. Intelligence, greening, and compliance have become an irreversible industrial wave. VFM & VTG 2026 will witness throughout and deeply empower this industrial upgrading and transformation sweeping across Southeast Asia's footwear and apparel industry, building a precise, efficient, and professional resource matchmaking platform for upstream and downstream enterprises worldwide, and pointing out the industry's development direction for the end of 2026 and 2027.
Welcome to 2026 VFM & VTG | SECC Ho Chi Minh City | October 14-17
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