The Garment, Footwear, and Travel Goods (GFT) sector has made significant contributions to Cambodia’s economic achievements in the past two decades. Political stability, competitive wage and production costs, preferential trade access, and a favourable investment climate have been the sector’s comparative advantage to allow this sector to flourish and become an economic growth pillar. According to the Cambodia GFT Sector Development Strategy 2022-2027, garments have remained at over 70% of the industrial export share since 2009, while Cambodia also diversified its exports, exporting such products as bicycles, vehicle parts, and electronic parts. In addition, the exports of travel goods (or bags) such as luggage, backpacks, handbags, and wallets to the US market have experienced significant growth in the last few years.
The number of factories and enterprises producing garments, footwear, and travel goods has continued to grow. During the 2020-2024 period, the total number of GFT firms expanded from 1,192 in 2020 to 1,555 firms in 2024. These include both export-oriented and subcontracting factories and enterprises that support the production of export-oriented factories such as laundry, embroidery, dyeing, sewing, packaging, etc. The sector directly created jobs for more than 918,000 workers in 2024 and is estimated to have indirectly benefitted between 2.5 and 3 million people. 1Female workers accounted for 75.6% of all employees in the sector in 2024.