On Tuesday, the Cambodian police with riot gears thwarted a week-long strike sparked off by the suspension of a union official at a Malaysian-owned garment factory, which produced goods for international brands including Gap, Benetton, Adidas and Puma. It has been reported that the clashes between more than 100 armed police force and 3,000 garment workers in Phnom Penh had resulted in nine women being hurt, though authorities maintain the operations did not hurt anyone.

The BBC’s Guy De Launey in Phnom Penh says the unrest could be a symptom of a wider social malaise owing to dwindling orders in Cambodia’s crucial garment industry which resulted in tens of thousands of job losses. Early this month, government increased the minimum wage from about $50 to $60, but the double-digit inflation and the trade unions demands of above $80 seemed to be bogging down the effect.

Albeit the unions retracted from a three-day general strike in protest against the meagre rise, the union official’s suspension is believed to have aggravated the situation. But last week’s Huffington Post report interpreted these strikes as a knee-jerk reaction to irrational calibration of wages by the outsourcing firms or associated agencies.

Interestingly, in last week’s blog by Auret van Heerden, President and CEO of the Fair Labour Association visualizes firms that build strong Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes into their operations and culture would have the edge in many markets. Nevertheless, evidences show such practices by firms are beyond procurement principles as it solely reckons pricing and related aspects devoid of labour rights – especially post-meltdown.

Cambodia’s textile industry accounts for around 85 percent of exports, and is the country’s third-largest source of income after tourism and agriculture. The Southeast Asian state continues to be in the grip of labour problems particularly after the global economic crisis that bombed exports severely to create an economic landscape of joblessness – and desertion of production units by the employers.

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Qimiao apprised Cambodia’s financial and banking methodology has particularly helped many of Cambodia’s commercial banks and micro-finance institutions to raise their standards of corporate governance, which eventually got rewarded with greater investments. Likewise, Chea Chanto, governor of the National Bank of Cambodia opined the recent bad experience of the world financial crisis taught Cambodia the hard way about how the failure of bank and financial system could impact livelihoods.

Chanto also told that Cambodia has learned a lot from the Asian financial crisis, and the National Bank of Cambodia has taken a series of measures to better supervise and regulate the banking and financial system in the country. Banks have an overwhelmingly dominant position in the country’s financial system, representing more than 90 percent and are extremely important engines of economic growth, he added.

In contrast, it should be recalled that Qimiao had said in the recently concluded Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum (CDCF) “transparency and accountability in the management of public finances and natural resources” were critical issues. This reference was in line with the international watchdog organization, Global Witness, which slammed donors last week for continuing to hand over huge sums of aid money, despite evidence of widespread corruption and mismanagement of public funds. Overseas donors continued to pledge financial support on the controversial Land Management and Administration Project, or LMAP that supposed to have rendered many homeless.

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