Machinery Manufacturers Tap Garment Sector

More than 150 companies from China, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, as well as Germany and England on Thursday set up shop at the exhibition center on Phnom Penh’s Koh Pich island, displaying everything from $900 labeling machines to sewing machines worth $56,000 that automatically attach pockets to trousers. Coming on the coat tails of booming half-year earnings in the garment export sector, the domestic and foreign makers of garment-production machinery arrived in Phnom Penh last week for a four-day exhibition to showcase their wares. Garment exports to the European Union in the first six months of the year increased 58.7 percent to $436.9 million compared to the same period in 2010.