Manufacturing

The sole retailer of Mercedes-Benz cars into the country, Hung Hiep (Cambodia) Co., has suspended imports since January over what it claims is a new import duty on luxury cars coming into the country. Other luxury car importers including Porsche, Audi, BMW and Jaguar Land Rover, ...

Following the mass fainting of hundreds of workers at garment factories last week, an official at the Ministry of Labour has raised concerns over the control of toxic chemicals. Leng Tong, director of the Labour Ministry’s occupational health and safety department, said factories should be providing ...

In a rare moment of honesty a Cambodian official has admitted his doubts about his country’s ability to meet regional expectations in time for the launch of the much vaunted ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by the end of 2015. “If you talk about short-term: Yes, we ...

Police in Svay Rieng province yesterday afternoon arrested a union worker who was delivering flyers supporting a stay-at-home strike scheduled to begin after Khmer New Year. While delivering about 1,100 fliers to union members at Full Fortune Knitting, Kem Chamroeun, a 25-year-old Collective Union of Movement ...

The building that housed USA Fully Field Garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district stands empty now. The grounds are littered with garbage and boxes full of dusty brand labels that were stitched onto clothes by almost 400 workers before the factory owner fled in ...

Facing public pressure from major garment brands and labor unions, the Ministry of Labor and the International Labor Organization (ILO) will cooperate in the coming months to reform the current system of setting the minimum wage in the garment sector. The reform process will begin with ...

Labor union leader expressed pleasure and welcomed the study of minimum wage for footwear and garment factory workers. However, he said that the workers will hold protest after the New Year. ...

More than 100 workers of Shenzhou garment factory in Phnom Penh fainted Thursday, one day after a similar mass fainting at the same factory. The first workers fainted at about 8 a.m., setting off a chain reaction that sent the entire workforce running from the factory ...

More than 200 Cambodian garment workers have been hospitalized after episodes of mass fainting at three factories this week, highlighting problems within an industry that is critical to the kingdom’s fledgling economy. The plants all make clothes for brands such as sportswear giants Puma SE and Adidas. Both ...

Nearly 100 garment workers employed by the New Wide garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district have fainted since Tuesday evening after company representatives’ allegedly sprayed insecticide throughout the factory, a local official and a worker said. ...

Grocery and beer sales are expected to spike during April as Khmer New Year preparations ramp up, retail industry officials said yesterday. Hy Ramy, managing director of HRM (Cambodia) Group, a food and beverage distribution company specialising in canned foods, condiments and beverages, said he expects ...

The Ministry of Labour has announced that factory managers must allow employees three days off for Khmer New Year, even as some union leaders encourage workers to extend that time. In a letter to factory owners dated March 25, Labour Minister Ith Sam Heng reminds owners ...

Opposition lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua and five CNRP youth supporters were ejected Tuesday from Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park after they gathered to film a video for a foundation named after Free Trade Union founder Chea Vichea, who was assassinated in 2004. “We did not come to ...

Workplace deaths shot up more than 60 per cent last year when compared with 2012, while injuries and payouts to those injured also saw dramatic increases, according to data released yesterday by the National Social Security Fund (NSSF). Speaking during a conference at the Ministry of ...

The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) on Monday launched an initiative to provide health insurance to the nation’s workforce, a plan that the country’s largest employers’ associations said was premature. NSSF director Ouk Samvithya said that by the middle of this year, enterprises in the country ...

A lawyer representing three of the 23 people arrested during garment strike clashes on January 2 and 3 hopes the capital’s court will drop charges against her clients when it hears their case on April 18, she said yesterday. ...

European mega-brands are not doing enough to ensure that the Cambodian workers who make their products receive a basic living wage, according to a report released today. Tailored Wages, an analysis of 50 of Europe’s biggest clothing brands, found that many major high-street chains are doing ...

The Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM) is hoping to turn a select group of garment workers into muckrakers by offering a journalism program through the Voice of Democracy news outlet. Free of charge, the course will last until October and have a firm focus on ...

A government committee charged with assessing damage from the garment worker protests in December and January has put the value of the destruction at over $250,000. It places blame squarely on the opposition CNRP and a trio of union leaders. That committee’s report, released Thursday, ...

Tepid interest in a Taiwanese-owned garment manufacturer’s planned initial public offering in Cambodia means that the deal could be priced below the midpoint of an indicative range, a person with direct knowledge of the offering said Thursday. Grand Twins International (Cambodia) PLC had planned to sell ...

The opposition CNRP made another pitch for an end to free trade benefits for Cambodian sugar exports to the European Union at a meeting in Phnom Penh on Wednesday with visiting European Parliament members, blaming the benefits for effectively subsidizing companies that are evicting poor ...

When is a strike not a strike? That’s a question being asked after union leaders yesterday announced they will inform garment factory owners that their members want to use annual leave days to wage their stay-at-home strike the week after Khmer New Year. The leaders of eight ...

Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng said Tuesday that he has sent a letter responding to 30 international clothing brands who recently wrote to the government expressing their concerns over a draft union law which could allow for the arbitrary breakup of unions. Speaking outside a conference ...

Employees at the Kampong Speu shoe factory where a ceiling collapse killed two workers last May are headed back to work today after more than a week on strike, but will take their demands to the Arbitration Council. ...