Govt: Contracts are signed for export to EU market

Tin Sokhavuth



Minister of Commerce Pan Sorasak, on Wednesday after the annual meeting at his ministry, told reporters that a number of contracts to export products made in Cambodia to the European Union market for the year 2018 were already signed between employers in Cambodia and dealers in the EU. As a result, there would not be any problem with the EU market for at least one year.

The minister added that the EU market was the most important for the Kingdom of Cambodia due to the Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme that grants full duty free and quota free access to the EU market for all products except arms and armaments.

He added that so far, most of products made in Cambodia exported to the EU market were products from textile industries, rice, sugar, palm sugar, and a number of other agricultural products.

Concerning this issue, Mr. George Edgar, Ambassador of the European Union to Cambodia, on December 13, told representatives from the National Union Alliance Chamber of Cambodia (NACC) that the EU still would like to support the garment and footwear sectors that are very necessary to support many Cambodian people.

In the meeting, Mr. Som Onn, NACC's president, told Ambassador Edgar that at the time, the Cambodian garment and footwear sectors were on the rise. The sectors provided jobs to around 800,000 Cambodian workers who, in turn, could support their families of around two million people.

Mr. Onn also told the ambassador that the total amount of money from the export of clothes and shoes made in Cambodia in 2016 was more than $7 billion. And, for the first nine months in 2017, the export was estimated to be more than $5.6 billion.

Regarding working condition, Mr. Onn said that with cooperation from different stakeholders, particularly International Labour Organization (ILO), working condition in the country was improved day by day.

However, earlier this month, the EU parliament asked the European Commission to consider a possible temporary suspension of their EBA granted for Cambodia following the dissolution of the main opposition party CNRP by the ruling party CPP.