The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has helped Vietnamese garment-textile outsourcers save over 20 per cent of water and energy consumption.

The information was released at a workshop reviewing the programme on enhancing resource-efficient consumption, held by IFC in HCM City on Wednesday.

The sustainable production project has been carried out in 28 enterprises and factories nationwide doing outsourcing for VF Group and Target Group over the past 18 months, mostly during the stages of cutting, sewing, dyeing, printing and laundry.

The project, worth US$9.9 million, has applied measures to enhance resource efficiency, saving $15 million for Vietnamese enterprises by reducing water, energy and chemicals consumption.

Once all recommendations under the project are implemented plus an additional investment of $26 million in new equipment is made, the targeted enterprises will save up to 2.8 million cu.m of water and 562,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas per year in the next two years.

Kyle Kelhofer, country director of IFC for Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos, said the results of the project in the first stage have proven economically efficient thanks to the saving of resources.

With fast growth of the nation’s economy as well as in the garment-textile sector, measures to enhance resource efficiency in the garment and textile sector will open up important opportunities for Viet Nam to boost sustainable growth in the private sector, he said.

They will also help Vietnamese factories save production cost while promoting resource-efficient consumption and sustainable development, he added.

IFC plans to work with other leading global brands to promote implementation of the programme for Vietnamese outsourcers.

The garment-textile sector is the second largest earner of foreign currency for Viet Nam, earning over $27 billion from exports per year. — VNS