Sunday, 11 January 2009

Cambodian garment export down by 2 pct in 2008

Source: Xinhua
01-09-2009 16:33

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Garment, the foremost pillar industry of Cambodia, has seen a 2 percent decrease in its export in 2008 over 2007, Chinese-language newspaper the Commercial News reported on Friday.

The information was from Cambodian Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh, at the annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' Federation of Textiles and Apparel (AFTEX), which was held here on Thursday.

"This is better than my own expectation. I thought that it would have been down 5 to 7 percent," said Van Sou Ieng, chairman of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC).

He didn't give the reason of the slowdown.

Previous local reports have attributed it to the withering demand of traditional client countries.

Around 70 percent of Cambodia's garment products were sold to the United States, 4 percent to Canada and the rest mainly to European countries.

The export volume of the garment industry used to account for over 70 percent of the kingdom's total annual export volume.

In 2007, garment export earned 2.93 billion U.S. dollars for Cambodia, according to official figures.

Editor:Qin Yongjing

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