Cambodia Garment and Footwear Sector Bulletin Issue#2

Cambodia Garment and Footwear Sector Bulletin Issue 2: Solid first half of 2015 for Cambodia's garment and footwear sector

The ILO’s Cambodian Garment and Footwear Sector Bulletin examines key trends in the industry, including exports, factory openings and closures, employment, and wages. The Bulletin is intended to provide a comprehensive, neutral source of information for stakeholders in the Cambodian garment and footwear sector, and to assist them in social dialogue and wage negotiations. This is the second issue of the Bulletin.

Cambodia's garment and footwear industry, the backbone of the country's economy, continued to perform solidly in the first half of 2015. The value of exports grew by 12.7 per cent between the first half of 2014 and the first half of 2015. Real wages were 19 per cent higher in the first half of 2015 than they had been a year earlier, after rising by 13 per cent between 2013 and 2014. This real wage growth was the result of a 28 per cent minimum wage increase in January 2015 and low consumer price inflation of just 1.0 per cent. The sector currently employs more than 600,000 people in some 655 registered factories.