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Roundup: Cambodia raises monthly minimum wage for garment sector for 2017: labor minister

Xinhua, September 29, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Cambodian government on Thursday set the new monthly minimum wage for the country's multibillion-dollar garment and footwear sector at 153 U.S. dollars for next year, up 9.2 percent from the current 140 U.S. dollars, Labor Minister Ith Samheng announced.

The announcement came after the Labor Advisory Committee (LAC) voted on a minimum wage of 148 U.S. dollars for 2017, which was then upped an additional 5 U.S. dollars by Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen.

The LAC is comprised of 28 members: 14 government representatives and seven each from the factories and trade unions.

"Today we decided on 148 U.S. dollars and Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen added another five U.S. dollars, so the monthly minimum wage for the garment sector is 153 U.S. dollars for 2017," Ith Samheng told reporters.

"I think that this figure could not meet 100 percent of the requests from each side; however, it is better than what we have before," he said.

The new wage takes effect on Jan. 1, 2017.

Van Sou Ieng, president of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC), which represents all exporting garment factories, said that the new minimum wage was a bit high, but acceptable.

"We have to respect and understand the living cost in Phnom Penh that needs that kind of level," he told Xinhua. "I think that most of factories can afford that level."

Ath Thorn, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union, which is the largest union in the kingdom, said his union was still not satisfied with the new minimum wage.

"For the union, we are not happy with this new minimum wage because we have proposed a new minimum wage of 171 U.S. dollars," he told Xinhua, adding that however, the union accepted the government's decision.

Garment and footwear sector, the kingdom's largest foreign currency earner, accounts for some 80 percent of the country's total export.

The Southeast Asian country exported garment and shoe products worth 3.88 billion U.S. dollars during the first seven months of 2016, up 8.3 percent from 3.58 billion U.S. dollars over the same period last year, according to government figures.

The sector comprises some 1,000 factories with around 754,000 workers. Endit