VIETNAM

EXPORTS   The country’s export growth is slowing down, after an optimistic first half of the year.

• High inventories and declining consumption in importing countries will cut demand for Asia’s exports more generally, the World Bank said. It forecast regional economies will expand 3.2% this year, rather than the 5% projected in April.

Vietnam earned more than $31.8 billion from exporting textiles and garments in the first 10 months of this year, up 21.9 percent from the same period last year, according to the General Statistics Office.

• In October alone, Vietnam’s textile and garment export rose 5.7 percent year on year to around $2.8 billion.

Although the textile and garment market is forecasted to slow down until the end of the fourth quarter and through 2023, it is still possible to reach the export target of $43 to $44 billion this year, said Truong Van Cam, deputy chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association.

“This year the market is not just slow, but dead,” Megha Khemka, director of cotton supplier S.P. Yarns, told Nikkei Asia.