Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday said China was transporting raw textile materials to Cambodia to relieve some garment factories of shortages caused by the Covid-19 outbreak, which a union leader called a welcome but short-term fix.
Cambodia has aimed and succeeded at wooing Chinese travelers in recent years, but some tourism professionals say that wasn’t the best strategy, even before the Covid-19 outbreak started taking a toll on Siem Reap tourism.
Nearly 70 workers in a Kampong Speu province shoe factory fainted while working on Thursday, with a labor official saying he could not point to the reason behind yet another mass fainting in a factory.
Former staff of the closed Great Duke hotel in Phnom Penh have been awarded compensation by arbiters, as unions again demanded changes to the Trade Union Law, which they say restricts workers’ rights and the ability to organize.
After rapid construction in recent years transformed the coastal city, and more than 200 vendors’ stalls on public beaches were demolished in January, the future of Sihanoukville’s beach tourism is still unclear.
A luxury cruise ship that was turned away by other Asian nations due to fears of coronavirus docked at Cambodia’s Sihanoukville port Thursday evening, with passengers required to undergo health checks before they can disembark, officials said.
Cambodia’s duty-free trade access to the European market was partially withdrawn by the E.U. on Wednesday over “serious and systematic” human rights violations by Cambodia, the European Commission said.
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday said potential closures of garment factories in coming months would be due to novel coronavirus quarantine measures cutting manufacturers off from Chinese materials suppliers, not the result of the E.U. suspending trade benefits.
A labor union representing garment factory workers on Tuesday demanded authorities find five masked men who attacked a local union officer in Phnom Penh, leaving him bloodied and in need of stitches.
Garment workers say they’re worried they could lose their jobs if companies are forced to pay tariffs to export clothes and other goods to Europe, one of Cambodia’s largest export markets.
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