Cambodia garments, possibly losing EU trade position, now hit by coronavirus
At least four textile factories in Cambodia may suspend operations because of delays to the way to obtain raw materials from China due to the coronavirus outbreak, the labour ministry said on Monday.
Ministry spokesman Heng Sour said there had been delays found in deliveries of garments, yarn, buttons and shoe soles. The garment market is Cambodia's largest employer, making $7 billion (5.42 billion pounds) for the economy each year.
The European Union will choose Wednesday whether to suspend Cambodia's special trade preferences over human being rights concerns.
Cambodia benefits from the EU's "Everything But Hands" trade programme, that allows the world's least-developed countries to export most merchandise to europe free of duties.
"If by the next week of March, factories even now don't know when they can get the components from China, they could suspend for two to 3 weeks," Sour told Reuters.
Sour said that four factories, which employ around 3,000 personnel altogether, had expressed their concerns to the government.
Sour declined to supply names of the factories or perhaps which brands they supplied.
Global clothing and shoe brands, including Adidas, PUMA and Levi Strauss, have written to Cambodia's longtime leader, Hun Sen, saying the country's record in labour and human being rights threatens to lower sanctions about the garments industry.
Cambodia's only confirmed circumstance of coronavirus, a Chinese national in the coastal town of Sihanoukville, had recovered and still left hospital on Mon, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.
Source: www.thestar.com.my
