PHNOM PENH, April 28 (Xinhua) -- Garment and footwear industry, Cambodia's largest income earner, reported a 16 percent surge in exports in the first three months of 2014, the figures of the Ministry of Commerce showed Monday.
The Southeast Asian nation exported apparel and footwear products in equivalent to 1.56 billion U.S. dollars during the January-March period this year, up 16 percent from 1.34 billion U. S. dollars over the same period last year.
Main markets for the products are Europe and the United States.
The garment and footwear sector comprises 960 factories with about 620,000 workers, Labor Minister Ith Samheng said last week. The sector earned 5.5 billion U.S. dollars last year, accounting for about 80 percent of the country's total exports.
Wage dispute in the industry remains hot since eight pro- opposition trade unions, which represent about 19 percent of the total workers, still demand the government and the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC) raise the monthly minimum wages for workers to 160 U.S. dollars from the current 100 U.S. dollars.
Since last week, thousands of garment workers at about 30 factories in two special economic zones in Bavet City of Svay Rieng province have staged strikes, demanding a 50 U.S. dollars bonus they claimed that factories had promised to give them when they did not join a post-New Year week-long strike called by the opposition-aligned trade unions in mid-April.
GMAC denied that factories had made such promise and accused the pro-opposition unions of fabricating this information after they failed to attract workers for their post-New Year wage demanding strike.