The second Cambodia International Machinery Industry Fair 2012 (CIMIF 2012) will kick off this weekend from at the Diamond Island Convention Center in an effort to promote the industry development and foreign investment in Cambodia. It will run for four days from tomorrow to August 20.

Despite recent strikes in the garment and textile sectors, Ngoun Meng Tech, the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce’s (CCC) director general, said such tensions will have little effect on attendance and participation at the exhibition.

He said the exhibition will be good for business opportunites as the country’s industrialists meet with the suppliers.

“Of course, the exhibition is quite good for our domestic businesspeople – especially the owners of garment and textile factories who will have a chance to meet directly with the machinery suppliers.”

The Cambodian government should further actions against the supposedly illegal strike, which has slowed the entire industry, one of four Cambodia’s pillars of economic growth, he suggested.

“The Ministry of Labour might take even more action against the trade and workers’ unions to prevent them further spoiling the industry – the unions are currently giving the Garment Manufacturers’ Association of Cambodia, which represents the whole industry, a headache,” he said.

Om Mean, secretary of state for the Ministry of Labour said the ministry often sends out staff to observe all factories, to check working condition and to avoid disputes between employees and employers.

“Although we have the law on labor, social securities fund, and other regulations for both employers and employees to comply with, we still see problems, which most of the disputes being conflicts of interest,” he said.

“Even we have tried to enforce them to comply with the rules very strictly, especially to try to find out if the harmonisation resolution mechanisms worked, the problems still exist. However, the recent problems did not come to a deadlock, we have resolved most,” added Om.

Van Sou Ieng, chairman of GMAC told the Post recently there have been between 30 to 40 factories out of the 500 GMAC members who were experiencing strikes. He said presently, Cambodia has around 500 factories, of which 100 are sub-contracting and about 60 were new this year.

According to the data from the Ministry of Commerce, the total value of garment and textile exports accounts more than 80 per cent of the Kingdom’s exports, and rose by 8.12 per cent, achieving US$2.1 billion for the first half of the year compared to $1.93 billion for the same period last year.

To contact the reporter on this story: May Kunmakara at [email protected]