Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Cambodia seeks to uplift workers as it sets up college
By Guy De Launey BBC News, Phnom Penh
This is not school the way many of us would remember it. For starters, heads are not lolling on desks, willing the bell to ring and bring the agony to an end.
Instead the rows of students are bright-eyed, alert and turned out in eye-catching white-and-orange polo shirts.
They respond eagerly to the teacher's prompts and questions, occasionally breaking into good-natured laughter.
The bonhomie is all the more impressive considering this is a Sunday and classes started not long after six in the morning.
But the students are aware that the Garment Factory Supervisors' College offers an opportunity for something rarely seen in Cambodia: career progression.
And these young people - mostly women in their 20s - have willingly given up their weekends for a crash course in subjects like the labour law and occupational health and safety.
'Lot of conflict'
The garment and footwear industry is Cambodia's biggest employer. Almost 400,000 people work in the factories, producing clothes for big names like Gap, Adidas and Marks & Spencer.
Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
It will maintain high productivity, bring better communication and ensure the labour law will be clearly communicated to the workers”
Nov Dara
Better Factories Cambodia
Almost all of them are on the lowest pay grade, earning a minimum basic wage of $61 (£38) a month.
Overtime and seniority bonuses can push that into three figures, but until recently there was little chance of workers moving out from behind their sewing machines and into better-paying jobs.
The "us and them" divide between workers and management was stark. With little history of industrialisation before the garment industry took off a decade ago, there was a serious local skills shortage.
So not only were the garment factories largely owned by non-Cambodian companies, but most of the supervisory staff were expatriates as well, brought in from countries like China, Singapore and Bangladesh.
With little in the way of shared language or culture, workplace misunderstandings were frequent and so were the resulting disputes.
"Working across cultures they might have a lot of issues, a lot of conflict," says Nuon Laong.
Usually a factory adviser for the Better Factories Cambodia programme run under the auspices of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Laong indulges in some officially-sanctioned moonlighting as a teacher at the Supervisors' College on Sundays.
"Often problems start from a small issue - but they don't understand each other, and then it becomes a big issue. But if there are local people [working as supervisors] they can understand each other and any problems are going to be smaller."
Ensuring sustainability
Promoting local staff to supervisor status also makes sense for the people without whom Cambodia's garment industry would not exist: the buyers.
The backs of the students' polo shirts bear the names of some of the most familiar global fashion brands - showing their support for the college set up by the ILO.
The college hopes to provide garment workers with better career opportunities
This is not entirely altruistic. Local staff are less expensive than expats - lowering costs for factories and buyers alike.
But with price pressure always a factor in the garment sector, it is a measure which could ensure the long-term health of the industry in Cambodia.
"To ensure the sustainability of the garment industry, we need Cambodian supervisors to take over the role of the foreigners," says Nov Dara, the Better Factories Cambodia training manager.
"This is the goal for the Cambodian government and the Chinese factory management. It will maintain high productivity, bring better communication and ensure the labour law will be clearly communicated to the workers."
That idea is clearly getting across to the trainees at the college. A supervisor from one nearby factory rattled off a few facts about the labour law as she enjoyed her lunch break.
Morale booster
But perhaps the most important contribution could be to morale on the factory floor.
A recent series of well-publicised mass-fainting incidents has left question marks over Cambodia's hard-won image as a country which guarantees decent working conditions in the garment sector.
The college addresses this by adding pastoral care to the curriculum.
The new supervisors get information about issues ranging from reproductive health to career development, which it is hoped they will pass on to their junior colleagues.
To make the message stick, the facts come wrapped in a music and comedy performance, courtesy of a local performing arts group, which has the audience hooting with laughter and clapping along.
Hundreds of new supervisors will have received training by the time the college finishes its short run of Sunday classes in November.
If they can put what they have learned into practice, they may play an important part in making sure Cambodia's garment industry has a healthy future.
This is not school the way many of us would remember it. For starters, heads are not lolling on desks, willing the bell to ring and bring the agony to an end.
Instead the rows of students are bright-eyed, alert and turned out in eye-catching white-and-orange polo shirts.
They respond eagerly to the teacher's prompts and questions, occasionally breaking into good-natured laughter.
The bonhomie is all the more impressive considering this is a Sunday and classes started not long after six in the morning.
But the students are aware that the Garment Factory Supervisors' College offers an opportunity for something rarely seen in Cambodia: career progression.
And these young people - mostly women in their 20s - have willingly given up their weekends for a crash course in subjects like the labour law and occupational health and safety.
'Lot of conflict'
The garment and footwear industry is Cambodia's biggest employer. Almost 400,000 people work in the factories, producing clothes for big names like Gap, Adidas and Marks & Spencer.
Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
It will maintain high productivity, bring better communication and ensure the labour law will be clearly communicated to the workers”
Nov Dara
Better Factories Cambodia
Almost all of them are on the lowest pay grade, earning a minimum basic wage of $61 (£38) a month.
Overtime and seniority bonuses can push that into three figures, but until recently there was little chance of workers moving out from behind their sewing machines and into better-paying jobs.
The "us and them" divide between workers and management was stark. With little history of industrialisation before the garment industry took off a decade ago, there was a serious local skills shortage.
So not only were the garment factories largely owned by non-Cambodian companies, but most of the supervisory staff were expatriates as well, brought in from countries like China, Singapore and Bangladesh.
With little in the way of shared language or culture, workplace misunderstandings were frequent and so were the resulting disputes.
"Working across cultures they might have a lot of issues, a lot of conflict," says Nuon Laong.
Usually a factory adviser for the Better Factories Cambodia programme run under the auspices of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Laong indulges in some officially-sanctioned moonlighting as a teacher at the Supervisors' College on Sundays.
"Often problems start from a small issue - but they don't understand each other, and then it becomes a big issue. But if there are local people [working as supervisors] they can understand each other and any problems are going to be smaller."
Ensuring sustainability
Promoting local staff to supervisor status also makes sense for the people without whom Cambodia's garment industry would not exist: the buyers.
The backs of the students' polo shirts bear the names of some of the most familiar global fashion brands - showing their support for the college set up by the ILO.
The college hopes to provide garment workers with better career opportunities
This is not entirely altruistic. Local staff are less expensive than expats - lowering costs for factories and buyers alike.
But with price pressure always a factor in the garment sector, it is a measure which could ensure the long-term health of the industry in Cambodia.
"To ensure the sustainability of the garment industry, we need Cambodian supervisors to take over the role of the foreigners," says Nov Dara, the Better Factories Cambodia training manager.
"This is the goal for the Cambodian government and the Chinese factory management. It will maintain high productivity, bring better communication and ensure the labour law will be clearly communicated to the workers."
That idea is clearly getting across to the trainees at the college. A supervisor from one nearby factory rattled off a few facts about the labour law as she enjoyed her lunch break.
Morale booster
But perhaps the most important contribution could be to morale on the factory floor.
A recent series of well-publicised mass-fainting incidents has left question marks over Cambodia's hard-won image as a country which guarantees decent working conditions in the garment sector.
The college addresses this by adding pastoral care to the curriculum.
The new supervisors get information about issues ranging from reproductive health to career development, which it is hoped they will pass on to their junior colleagues.
To make the message stick, the facts come wrapped in a music and comedy performance, courtesy of a local performing arts group, which has the audience hooting with laughter and clapping along.
Hundreds of new supervisors will have received training by the time the college finishes its short run of Sunday classes in November.
If they can put what they have learned into practice, they may play an important part in making sure Cambodia's garment industry has a healthy future.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Land for Sale 5x16m at 16,700$
I have a plot of land 5m x 16m to sell at $16,700 near North Bridge Int'l School and Street 2004 (Maida Road), in Sleng Rorleung village, Khan Sen Sok. It's a very nice area for living because it's a safe area with water-electricity and sewage systems are all connected.
The road to the land is 6m. The land also has Plang Roeng (LMAP) so you feel secure to buy this land.
Please contact me for further details if you are interested. Thanks.
012-515-747, 012-403-940, 015-397-310
Friday, June 24, 2011
Pi nis Pi nus
I miss this road...
Activities at the ELSA Moot Court on WTO Law, Taiwan, 2011
Recently renovated house.
Monday, February 14, 2011
'Bad history' not helping attitudes on both sides
Mon, Feb 14, 2011
The Nation/Asia News Network
While some national media are quick to cast Cambodians as people not to be trusted, locals in Si Sa Ket have a more complex view of their neighbours. This doesn't stop some national papers espousing archetypal bias towards Cambodians, though such popular misconceptions may backfire and hinder mending ties between the people of the two nations well into the future.
"Elderly people in the areas along the border who for long have been trading with their neighbour often remind their children and grandchildren that they have never trusted Cambodians because [Cambodians] are not predictable. 'They may be friends in the morning but by the evening become enemies'," wrote a columnist last Tuesday.
While some locals say they do not trust Cambodians and will demand cash upfront when trading with them, others say such stereotyping is simply wrong. "There's no absolutely good Thai or absolutely evil Cambodian and vice versa," Niphon Polsaet-rerk, a school teacher in Kantharalak, said yesterday.
What's more, some villagers are married to Cambodians and surely none would have done so if all Thais believe Cambodians are not to be trusted.
But history textbooks and popular beliefs among Thais and Cambodians perpetuate prejudice and distrust. A scholar like Thibadi Buakamsri, of Kasetsart University, explained in a chapter of the Thai-language book "Nationalism in Thai Textbooks" how Thai history books made Thai students regard Cambodians with prejudice and distrust. A heavy reliance on historical accounts written by Siam's elite meant Thai history books gave Cambodians short shrift, he said.
"Cambodia [in the past] is just a small protectorate that often seeks to exploit moments of Ayutthaya's weakness by taking away some people [as captives] and declaring independence."
Contemporary writing in newspaper columns, feature stories and other popular media is very much moulded by this narrow-minded perspective in school textbooks, he said.
Sarnti Pakdeekham, a Cambodian studies expert at Srinakharinwirot University, also wrote that Cambodian textbooks more often than not remind their readers that Thais are ruthless foreign aggressors.
Sarnti, writing in his Thai-language book published in 2009 entitled "Khmers debate about Siam", said that while Cambodians' attitude towards Thais (and Siamese of the past) was rather complex, it might best compared to the negative attitude Thais hold toward the Burmese, who twice attacked and burnt down Ayutthaya.
"The way Thai history portrayed Burma as the historical 'bad guys' is not that different from the way Cambodian history writes about 'Thailand'," Sarnti wrote on pages 3-4 of his book.
Given that Thai-Cambodian relations are based on deeply rooted beliefs, historical wounds and nationalism, the ongoing conflict should be treated most carefully in order not to exacerbate the situation further. The conflict also should serve as a wake-up call for people in the two societies to think about how they can best overcome past wounds and present prejudice and distrust. This will be no easy task, but the other option of going to war and hating each other even more should certainly be less desirable.
The challenge for both Thais and Cambodians is to learn not to become a prisoner of their past while also questioning the prison that current nationalist thinking lock us in.
The Nation/Asia News Network
While some national media are quick to cast Cambodians as people not to be trusted, locals in Si Sa Ket have a more complex view of their neighbours. This doesn't stop some national papers espousing archetypal bias towards Cambodians, though such popular misconceptions may backfire and hinder mending ties between the people of the two nations well into the future.
"Elderly people in the areas along the border who for long have been trading with their neighbour often remind their children and grandchildren that they have never trusted Cambodians because [Cambodians] are not predictable. 'They may be friends in the morning but by the evening become enemies'," wrote a columnist last Tuesday.
While some locals say they do not trust Cambodians and will demand cash upfront when trading with them, others say such stereotyping is simply wrong. "There's no absolutely good Thai or absolutely evil Cambodian and vice versa," Niphon Polsaet-rerk, a school teacher in Kantharalak, said yesterday.
What's more, some villagers are married to Cambodians and surely none would have done so if all Thais believe Cambodians are not to be trusted.
But history textbooks and popular beliefs among Thais and Cambodians perpetuate prejudice and distrust. A scholar like Thibadi Buakamsri, of Kasetsart University, explained in a chapter of the Thai-language book "Nationalism in Thai Textbooks" how Thai history books made Thai students regard Cambodians with prejudice and distrust. A heavy reliance on historical accounts written by Siam's elite meant Thai history books gave Cambodians short shrift, he said.
"Cambodia [in the past] is just a small protectorate that often seeks to exploit moments of Ayutthaya's weakness by taking away some people [as captives] and declaring independence."
Contemporary writing in newspaper columns, feature stories and other popular media is very much moulded by this narrow-minded perspective in school textbooks, he said.
Sarnti Pakdeekham, a Cambodian studies expert at Srinakharinwirot University, also wrote that Cambodian textbooks more often than not remind their readers that Thais are ruthless foreign aggressors.
Sarnti, writing in his Thai-language book published in 2009 entitled "Khmers debate about Siam", said that while Cambodians' attitude towards Thais (and Siamese of the past) was rather complex, it might best compared to the negative attitude Thais hold toward the Burmese, who twice attacked and burnt down Ayutthaya.
"The way Thai history portrayed Burma as the historical 'bad guys' is not that different from the way Cambodian history writes about 'Thailand'," Sarnti wrote on pages 3-4 of his book.
Given that Thai-Cambodian relations are based on deeply rooted beliefs, historical wounds and nationalism, the ongoing conflict should be treated most carefully in order not to exacerbate the situation further. The conflict also should serve as a wake-up call for people in the two societies to think about how they can best overcome past wounds and present prejudice and distrust. This will be no easy task, but the other option of going to war and hating each other even more should certainly be less desirable.
The challenge for both Thais and Cambodians is to learn not to become a prisoner of their past while also questioning the prison that current nationalist thinking lock us in.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
IMF Urges Cambodia To Boost Revenue
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), at the end of the 2010 Article IV Consultation with Cambodia, has agreed that enhancing revenue collection and administration procedures were essential to ensure internal fiscal sustainability, while also providing room for the country to meet its medium-term development objectives.
It was reported that, following a significant easing in 2009, it is probable that Cambodia’s 2010 budget target will be bettered and a gradual fiscal consolidation is on track. The rebound in tax revenue is broadening, with a rise in both direct and indirect cumulative tax revenue. In particular, profit tax collection has gained momentum, supported by the ongoing economic recovery. Continued efforts to strengthen revenue administration, and reduced incentives for smuggling due to diminishing regional disparities in gasoline and diesel prices, have also helped contain tax evasion.
The Cambodian government is committed to further improving revenue administration. It concurred with the IMF that gains in tax collection offer the best hope for Cambodia to meet the dual objective of securing fiscal sustainability and mobilizing resources for its large development needs. Specifically, there was agreement that the scope to improve the productivity of the tax system is significant.
The IMF estimated that, based on its experience in similar countries, Cambodia’s tax revenue to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio is about 5%-7% below its potential. Since the mid-1990s, the tax revenue to GDP ratio has doubled, but at 12%, it is still the second lowest among Asian low-income countries (LICs) that average 17%. According to the IMF, bringing the productivity of the value-added tax alone to a level comparable with other Asian low-income countries would yield an additional 1.5% of GDP.
The IMF, therefore, supported the government’s target of improving the tax revenue to GDP ratio through better administration by 0.5% per year, which means that about one-third to one-half of the revenue enhancing potential would be realized over the medium-term.
There was also agreement that much will depend on following through with detailed action plans of the revenue collecting agencies, including: the enhancement of taxpayer compliance through auditing; information sharing among revenue-collecting and law-enforcement agencies; taxpayer education; and improved governance within the agencies (notably through better protection of enforcement officers and disclosure requirements under the recently adopted anti-corruption law).
The IMF recommended that a comprehensive strategy to enable a more aggressive collection of tax arrears, which rose 20% in the year ending July 2010, be put in place.
It was suggested that reducing the scope for evasion will also critically enhance the effectiveness of tax policy changes that are currently considered with a view to raise revenue. For example, the IMF estimated that replacing the reference price for taxes on petroleum imports to the current transactions price level would yield about 1% of GDP, and higher “sin” taxes on alcohol and tobacco could generate an additional 0.2% of GDP.
However, it was pointed out that these calculations assume that the resulting increase in domestic retail prices over those in neighbouring countries does not erode the tax base. This requires that greater incentives for smuggling are effectively curbed by the envisaged improvements to customs control. It was agreed that better information sharing and transfer of know-how in the fight against tax evasion from the General Customs and Excise Department to the General Tax Department will also be needed in light of trade liberalization commitments and the growing reliance on domestic taxes relative to trade taxes.
Source: http://www.tax-news.com/cyprus/cyprus_review_2010.asp
It was reported that, following a significant easing in 2009, it is probable that Cambodia’s 2010 budget target will be bettered and a gradual fiscal consolidation is on track. The rebound in tax revenue is broadening, with a rise in both direct and indirect cumulative tax revenue. In particular, profit tax collection has gained momentum, supported by the ongoing economic recovery. Continued efforts to strengthen revenue administration, and reduced incentives for smuggling due to diminishing regional disparities in gasoline and diesel prices, have also helped contain tax evasion.
The Cambodian government is committed to further improving revenue administration. It concurred with the IMF that gains in tax collection offer the best hope for Cambodia to meet the dual objective of securing fiscal sustainability and mobilizing resources for its large development needs. Specifically, there was agreement that the scope to improve the productivity of the tax system is significant.
The IMF estimated that, based on its experience in similar countries, Cambodia’s tax revenue to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio is about 5%-7% below its potential. Since the mid-1990s, the tax revenue to GDP ratio has doubled, but at 12%, it is still the second lowest among Asian low-income countries (LICs) that average 17%. According to the IMF, bringing the productivity of the value-added tax alone to a level comparable with other Asian low-income countries would yield an additional 1.5% of GDP.
The IMF, therefore, supported the government’s target of improving the tax revenue to GDP ratio through better administration by 0.5% per year, which means that about one-third to one-half of the revenue enhancing potential would be realized over the medium-term.
There was also agreement that much will depend on following through with detailed action plans of the revenue collecting agencies, including: the enhancement of taxpayer compliance through auditing; information sharing among revenue-collecting and law-enforcement agencies; taxpayer education; and improved governance within the agencies (notably through better protection of enforcement officers and disclosure requirements under the recently adopted anti-corruption law).
The IMF recommended that a comprehensive strategy to enable a more aggressive collection of tax arrears, which rose 20% in the year ending July 2010, be put in place.
It was suggested that reducing the scope for evasion will also critically enhance the effectiveness of tax policy changes that are currently considered with a view to raise revenue. For example, the IMF estimated that replacing the reference price for taxes on petroleum imports to the current transactions price level would yield about 1% of GDP, and higher “sin” taxes on alcohol and tobacco could generate an additional 0.2% of GDP.
However, it was pointed out that these calculations assume that the resulting increase in domestic retail prices over those in neighbouring countries does not erode the tax base. This requires that greater incentives for smuggling are effectively curbed by the envisaged improvements to customs control. It was agreed that better information sharing and transfer of know-how in the fight against tax evasion from the General Customs and Excise Department to the General Tax Department will also be needed in light of trade liberalization commitments and the growing reliance on domestic taxes relative to trade taxes.
Source: http://www.tax-news.com/cyprus/cyprus_review_2010.asp
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