Tailoring accessories wholesalers at Cholon.

Statue of Lao Tzu(pinyin: Lǎozǐ),a great chinese philisopher who live during the 5th century BC along Hải Thượng Lãn Ông Road just across the Sacombank in Cholon Chinatown District 5,Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

 Lao Tzu is depicted as an old man with a white beard and a yellow robe.
In his right hand, he is carrying a peach, the symbol of immortality, while in his left hand he carries a wooden staff with the head of a dragon.

 Over here in Vietnam he's known as Lao Tu,that's why you have Lao Tu Street nearby with the Buddhist pagoda temple known as Chùa Quan Âm.

Behind Ben Xe Cholon is Trang Tu Road,running parallel to Tránh Chăn Chiếu Road and there are many textile merchants over these side.

 Further up will be Nguyễn Trãi Road[Thien Hau Pagoda (Chua Thien Hau),Ong Pagoda (Nghia An Hoi Chan Temple) and Jamil Mosque in the vicinity] that meets the main artery road of Hồng Bàng Street[Phuoc An Hoi Quan Pagoda around here].




 Cho Lon is the Chinese section annexed to Saigon city and is a heavy populated area.

The Battle of Cholon way back in 1968 saw fierce fightings between the vietcongs and government forces especially near the Hong Bang Street area.

 The only modern high rise skyscraper seen across from Hai Truong Lan Ong Street(also known as The Medicine Street).






The Thuận Kiều Plaza.
The project was completed in 1998.
 The Thuận Kiều commercial center in District 5 along Hồng Bàng Street is a 33 storey apartment building complex .
There are three towers apartment blocks with lettable area and also for sale to foreigners.
The complex has been developed by Hong Kong's Kings Harmony International United and HCMC's District 5 Construction and Trading Co.

On the ground floors there are offices,shopping malls and restaurants.  
Quang Dai Minimart is on the second floor of Thuan Kieu Plaza,40%-50% of customers are foreigners, mostly from China and Hong Kong.
First floor Hai San Restaurant is popular with local businessmen and wedding parties. It serves excellent dim sum but you'll have to ignore the garish, stark interiors.
On the ground floor, Lau Ca Chinese Restaurant offers steamboat and seafood.








A Buddha gem pagoda tower.
Normally a pagoda tower is octagonal in shape and has eight levels depicting the Noble Eightfold Path which is one one of the teaching of Buddha.

  Chua Phuoc Long Buddhist Temple at Le Quang Sung Street which is north of Binh Tay Market,Cholon,District 5,Vietnam.










Co.op Mart at Le Quang Sung Street is one of the most popular supermarket chain whose brand name is synonymous with the Vietnamese people.

They have private home brand products produced from local factories that are quality compliance and are cheaper than other brand.
Stocks available ranges from processed food,homecare,household appliances and apparels,
The headoffice is at No:199-205, Nguyen Thai Hoc -Pham Ngu Lao,District 1.
Vietnam's domestic consumer market is very huge and there are still potentials to tap the rural lower budget consumers who are also brand conscious.







Walking through one of the side alleys off Hai Truong Lan Ong Street beside Ngo Doc Thanh street ,I stumbled into a wholesale market specialty in sewing and tailoring accessories for the domestic and export garments industries.

 The narrow alleys are quite similar to those at Yaowarat in Bangkok Chinatown.

Vietnam main zipper brand is the HKK.
 The pioneer in the field of zippers is Hoan My Company Limited whose headoffice is at No:455 Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, Ward 5, Dist. 3, Ho Chi Minh City, VietNam while its factory is at Highway 13 Ap Tay,Vinh Phu Ward, Thuan An Dist.,Binh Duong Province, VietNam.

Most of the zippers on the apparels which you are wearing is from the YKK brand from Japan which is the world's largest zipper manufacturer. The initials YKK stand for (Yoshida Kōgyō Kabushikigaisha), Yoshida Manufacturing Corporation.





 A small little wholesale shop selling domestic sewing thread.
Each small cops of spun polyester sewing thread contains 250 metres in length and it comes in a box of 10 cops.

They are either the 2-ply(40s/2) or 3-ply(60s/3) twisted polyester yarn. The colour trend now seems to be those of pastel and luminous match. There are close to 500 colour range in the shade card and only the most popular trending colours have higher stocks level.

You'll be surprised that a small shop like this can churn in a substantial annual turnover.







COATS brand sewing thread is a global and well established sewing thread company.
The new logo is after the merging of J& P Coats and Astra Sewing Company way back in 1996 both from England,Great Britain.
I was a marketing executive of this company for nearly 13 years till the merging of the whole entity.

Coats Phong Phu Ltd located at Tang Nhon Phu B ward, District 9, Ho Chi Minh City is a joint venture between Coats Holdings Ltd. and Phong Phu Textile Company (Vietnam). It was established on July 25th, 1989.







In the Asia Pacific region,most of the spun polyester thread are wound onto a plastic cops compared to the western counterparts who are used to the spool type.

 The Anchor brand cotton ball thread comes in size 2(thicker),size 8 and size 10.
The cone shape thread are the industrial 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres.
Most of the nylon thread used mostly by the shoes ,belts and bags industry are being supplied by the company's factory in Germany.
As for cotton thread,the main source is from India which is one of the major cotton producers in the world.
The world's cotton price has short up to its high @ 214 cents per pound on February 2011 from a low of 48 cents per pound in February 2009.The latest price is 110 cents per pound,a double digit increase and thus will affect the prices of apparels and garments.