Vietnam has recently urged the United States to extend its quotas on local textiles and garments, according to the country's Ministry of Industry Monday.

The two sides will soon conduct negotiations on the issue, but there is no response yet from the United States about the time- frame, said Nguyen Hong Duong, deputy head of the ministry's American-European Department.

"Basically, the negotiations won't meet any difficulties or complicated formalities, but Vietnam is still required to comply with necessary procedures for them," he said.

Under a bilateral agreement on textile and garment signed last April, Vietnamese enterprises can annually export garments worth up to 1.7 billion US dollars to the United States.

Vietnam supplied the world with over 3.5 billion dollars worth of textiles and garments in the first nine months of this year, posting a year-on-year rise of 4.4 percent. It earned over 4.3 billion dollars from exporting the products last year, of which nearly 50 percent came from the United States.

By late 2003, Vietnam had 1,050 garment and textile enterprises with a total workforce of more than 2 million. By that time, the country's garment and textile industry had attracted nearly 400 foreign-invested projects with a total registered capital of roughly 1 billion dollars.

Source: Xinhua