The textile industry is by far the most important manufacturing activity of the country. Alone, it contributes to 16% of the Cambodian GDP and represents between 80 and 90% of the country’s total exportations. It is growing quickly and steadily, the number of fabrics having multiplied by 100 during the last decade.
Labor force employed in garment fabrics, situated near urban centers, is predominantly female: 90 to 95%. Aged between 18 and 35, the women mainly come from the countryside and are most of the time underpaid workers.
The political stability established by Hun Sen’s authority attracts several foreign investors, in particular the major international fashion clothing companies, and it allows the country to benefit from one of the highest growth rates of the region.
Today, the textile industry belongs to suppliers coming from China, who are attracted by the pricing conditions that developed countries granted to Cambodia a few years ago. So the sector is strongly dependant of Chinese inputs.
As the newspaper Le Journal du Cambodge summarizes:
“The garment industry in Cambodia is the biggest source of foreign currencies. The sector involves over 300 factories, and employs some 335 400 workers, 90% of them being women. The country has exported last year the equivalent of 4.6 billion US dollars of textile and clothing products, an 8% rise in one year, according to a Ministry of Trade report published last week.
The United States and the European countries are the major buyers; Canada, Japan, South Korea and China also are important customers.
Currently, the minimum wage of a worker is 61US$ per month. The fact that international firms with high profits pay so low wages has alerted the international opinion. Workers’ several fainting attacks mainly due to a combination of malnutrition and poor working conditions, which resulted into several strikes, are creating concrete conditions for an evolution of the sector.”
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