The Garment Manufacturer’s Association in Cambodia (GMAC) signed a $3.5
million loan agreement with French international development agency Agence
Francaise de Development (AFD) yesterday to build Cambodia’s first garment
sector training school.
The school will train Cambodia’s
unskilled garment workers and other Cambodians who wish to undertake high level
work in garment factories in order to cancel out the high labour costs of
employing people from abroad, Van Sou Ieng, president of GMAC, said at the
signing ceremony.
He said that so far, most
Cambodians working in the garment industry are unskilled, limiting them to just
cutting the cloth and sewing the garments. Meanwhile, for technical work,
people need to be recruited from abroad at a higher cost.
“For technical work and higher
positions in the industry, we always hire foreigners to come and work in
Cambodia as we don’t have qualified Cambodians,” he said. “This signing
ceremony is to build the school to train Cambodian workers to get the qualifications
for higher positions in the factories and to manage the workers,” he added.
“I hope that the school will
train Cambodian people to gain skills in order to work at a high level in the
industry where we normally hire from abroad – at merchandising, merchant
control [levels] – some other technical work,” said Sou Ieng.
Kain Monika, GMAC business
development manager, told reporters that the loan, which has a repayment period
of 15 years, will be used to build a school located in the Phnom Penh Special
Economic Zone and construction will take about two years. Presently, most of
the foreign workers come from China, Malaysia and the Philippines.
The school will be open to all
Cambodians and young graduates who want to work at higher levels or positions
in the industry, said Kain Monika.
Technical teachers will be hired
from abroad. It is a non-profit school, but the fees will be used to cover
daily operations, and ensure the sustainability of the school.
According to data from GMAC, 500
garment factories are registered members with the association, employing more
than 500,000 workers.
Cambodia’s total garment and
textile exports increased slightly at around 10 per cent to $3.44 billion over
the first nine months of the year, compared to $3.13 billion over the same
period last year, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed.
May Kunmakara
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