Cambodia’s crucial garment sector is bracing for the end of a 30-year-old global textile quota system in December, hoping to position itself as a labour-friendly alternative to China. The highly mobile garment manufacturing industry contributes more than 90 percent of Cambodia’s export earnings and employs an estimated 240,000 mostly female workers, making it the linchpin…
Read moreCambodia’s fashion designers create tropical chic
Fashion designers in Cambodia are tapping into the kingdom’s stunning fabrics, affordable workmanship and tropical inspiration, making for a vibrant although still-tiny industry. While the impoverished country is better known for its garment exports fuelled by more than 200 mass-producing factories, a handful of designers are focusing on the domestic market of moneyed Khmers, expatriates…
Read moreIll-prepared Cambodia grapples with mounting drug crisis
Slumped across a bag of rubbish near a busy Phnom Penh market as he awaits his first heroin hit of the day, Yim is one of a soaring number of drug addicts in Cambodia. He is the human face of a crisis threatening to unwind development progress in this war-scarred society. Wearing a long-sleeved shirt…
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