Vietnam exported textiles and garments worth nearly 2.7 billion U.S. dollars in the first five months of this year, a year-on-year rise of 24.3 percent, according to the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (Vitas) on Wednesday.

Vitas has encouraged local garment enterprises to further explore traditional markets such as the United States, the European Union, and Japan, and seek more new ones.

It also urged them to focus on building trademarks, strengthening trade promotion, increasing products' quality and improving design, marketing and management.

Vietnam, which posted textile and garment export turnovers of more than 5.8 billion dollars in 2006, has targeted to earn 7 billion dollars from selling garment overseas in 2007, said the association.