Cambodia has 960 garment, footwear factories: labor minister

Garment and footwear industry, Cambodia's largest foreign exchange earner, currently consists of 960 factories, employing some 620,000 workers, labor minister Ith Samheng said Thursday.

The sector made a revenue of 5.5 billion US dollars last year, accounting for around 80 percent of the country's total exports, he told a workshop on strengthening the process of minimum wage setting.

Main buyers are from the United States and European countries.

"The factories spend more than 1 billion US dollars a year for workers' wages," he said, adding that about 2 million Cambodian people indirectly benefit from the industry.

The minister said since 2000, minimum wages for garment and footwear workers have been raised nine times from 40 dollars a month to the current 100 dollars.

"The government and the manufacturers group will continue to raise salaries for workers based on the factors of economic growth and competition with manufacturers in other countries so as to ensure the sustainability of factories and employment," he said.

Dispute over minimum wages for garment workers remain hot in this Southeast Asian nation since eight pro-opposition trade unions, which represent more than 100,000 workers, are still jointly demanding that the government and the garment manufacturers association increase the minimum wages to 160 dollars a month, but the government said the wage hike is too high to afford.





Prime Minister Hun Sen has said recently that the current wages for Cambodian garment workers are higher than those of Laos, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Myanmar.

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/856548.shtml