PHNOM PENH, May 13 (Xinhua) -- Garment industry, Cambodia's largest foreign currency earner, reported an 11 percent rise in exports in the first quarter of 2015, according to the figures of the Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday.

The country exported apparel products in equivalent to 1.73 billion U.S. dollars during the January-March period this year, up 11 percent from 1.56 billion U.S. dollars over the same period last year, the figures said.

Garment products, accounted for 80 percent of the country's total exports, have been mainly sold to the European Union, the United States, and some Asian countries, particularly China, South Korea, and Japan.

During the first quarter of this year, apparel exports to EU increased 16 percent to 680 million U.S. dollars, to the U.S. decreased 1 percent to 537 million U.S. dollars, and to other countries rose 21 percent to 521 million U.S. dollars.

Kaing Monika, deputy secretary general of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC), predicted that the sector would see higher growth for the rest of the year thanks to production increase as strikes over wages ended.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=281815

Those garment workers make $US100 (3200 baht) per month for long hours. They went on strike just last year and in December Cambodian police sprayed them with automatic weapons fire killing at least 4 and wounding many others to break the strike.

On the one hand one might wish that the West wouldn't do business with them and on the other hand it's much of the foreign income and new money that they have. What to do?

Wall Street Journal

I was on the road from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville this week and was amazed by the number of garment factories there were. There are even more, huge factories going up.