230 companies show products at int’l textile, garments fair

BUSINESS

Thursday ,Oct 28,2010, Posted at: 11:36(GMT+7)

The 10th Vietnam International Textile and Garments Industry Exhibition, the largest annual garment event for exporters, started Wednesday in Ho Chi Minh City with about 230 exhibiting companies. International brands from Australia, Belgium, China, France, German, Holland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and the US are taking part in the four-day exhibition, staged at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center in District 7. The exhibits at the event include machines and technologies for the textile and garments industry. Major exhibitors include Brother, Calmat, HASHIMA, Kornit, Kauo Heng, Luwa, Mitsuyin, Naomoto, Organ, Pegasus, Schenk, Siruba, SwissTex, and Viet Tien Tung Shing. Birla Cellulose, a first-time participant, introduces its new biodegradable and sustainable resources in the textile and garment industry. A fashion show is held during the first three show days for famous brand names such as CK, Diesel and Levi’s. Models perform in a fashion show in the opening day of the 10th Vietnam International Textile and Garments Industry Exhibition in Ho Chi Minh City on Oct. 27, 2010 (Photo: Thuy Hoa) The fair is organized by the Vietnam National Trade Fair & Advertising Company (Vinexad), Paper Communication Exhibition Service Co., and Yorkers Trade & Marketing Services Co. According to a report by the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnam earned US$5.87 billion from textile and garment exports in between January and July, a year-on-year rise of 17.4 percent. The industry’s export revenue is expected to increase by 15 percent this year, and even reach US$20 billion by 2020.

Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific

30 October 2010

The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.

Asia

Cambodian garment workers remain suspended

More than a month after the betrayal by the unions of a four-day national strike, many Cambodian garment workers remain locked out by their employers for having participated in the strike.
According to the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union (CCAWDU), which called off the strike on September 16 to enter into negotiations with the employers and Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government, 94 union representatives remain suspended. In addition, at least 10 factories have filed damages law suits against Cambodian Labour Confederation (CLC) officials, and are seeking the suspension of workers identified as strike leaders.
More than 200,000 garment workers—over half the industry’s workforce—had walked out for four days to demand that the $US61 per month minimum wage, agreed to in July with the government, employers and the Free Trade Union of Workers, be lifted to $93. As soon as the strikers returned to work on September 17, employers began to suspend factory delegates and initiate legal cases against them. At least 300 were singled out immediately.
The Ministry of Social Affairs has now demanded that 34 suspended union representatives at the River Rich garment factory in Kandal province sign a three-point pledge in exchange for their return to work. Workers refused to sign the pledge, which required them to respect company regulations, abide by the government’s Labour Law and stop inciting “illegal” strikes.
The CCAWDU has threatened to renew work stoppages if the cases of suspended union representatives are not resolved by the end of the month. But the unions have already effectively abandoned the wage claim on which last month’s strike was based, saying they will seek other concessions instead, such as daily food allowances and seniority payments. This is despite the fact that giant global clothing firms like Adidas, Levi Strauss, Gap Inc, Hennes and Mauritz, and Walt Disney are continuing to make super profits by exploiting cheap labour in Cambodia.

MDGs: Challenges for Bangladesh

chris-alexander.co.uk.Sayeed Arman
The Daily Star, Thursday, October 28, 2010

 
 
TEN years have passed since the United Nations adopted the Millennium Declaration, which gave rise to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In September 2000, world leaders endorsed the Millennium Declaration, a commitment to work together to build a safer, more prosperous and equitable world. Since then, countries around the world have worked tirelessly to reach these goals.
A few countries in Asia have been very successful in implementing these goals; others have made satisfactory progress and a few are still lagging behind the rest. Bangladesh received the UN award for its remarkable achievements in attaining the Millennium Development Goals, particularly in reducing child mortality.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina received the award at a colourful function at New York's Astoria Hotel on September 19. Nepal, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Rwanda also received awards. But that does not mean that we are in a good position. Consulting a few different sources one can begin to understand what's going on in Bangladesh with regard to the MDGs.
Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger: With regards to poverty, Bangladesh is on track. But when it comes to achieving full, productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people, we have made slow progress. That figure has gone up from 48% in the base year to 58.5% (current status).
Here, our target is ensuring employment for all. When it comes to removing hunger our progress has been very satisfactory. But the issue of child malnutrition, which is still around 50%, needs closer scrutiny and is one area where we can still do a lot to improve the situation.
Achieving universal primary education: This is a sector where progress has been commendable. Most regions of Bangladesh have primary enrolment ratios above 85%, and many even above 91%; in comparison to the base year percentage of 60 this is a great leap forward.
However, we must also keep an eye on dropout rates, and even though in 2009 the primary completion rate was close to 80% there is little scope for complacency. Adult literacy is also on the rise and that bodes well for our future, with rates going up from 37% in the base year to 72% now.
Promoting gender equality and empower women: The target is to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015, while also empowering women. The ratio of girls to boys in primary education, secondary education and tertiary education shows that we have mixed success.
Though the proportion of seats held by women in the national Parliament has increased, our target remains for it to eventually be 33%. On the flip side, the share of women in wage employment in the non-agriculture sector is quite low. We should try our best to even the playing field for them.
Reducing child mortality: The picture is mixed here. We have to consider the target from three different positions. They are under five mortality rate, infant mortality rate and proportion of one-year-old children immunised against measles.
There were 146 mortalities per thousand live births in base year, and in 2010 that number was down to 67. But our target of 48 is still to be achieved and we have only five years to do so. The number of one-year-old children immunised against measles went up from 54% in the base year to 88%, the last year for which information was readily available. Infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births) target is 31. But now it is 45.
Improving maternal health: Here, progress is now satisfactory. The target is to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015, but the ratio in Bangladesh has declined from 547 to 348 per lac.
Most of these deaths could have been avoided if care and access to emergency obstetric care was more readily available. Achieving this target (144) will be very challenging, but not out of reach. We have the structural facilities and just need to develop a system to use them properly.
Combatting HIV/AIDS and other diseases: This is an area of great concern. Only 15.8% Bangladeshis aged 15 to 24 have some knowledge of HIV/Aids. Malaria is also a worry. It has been said that the death rate associated with malaria per lac population was 0.37 in 2000 and now it is 0.11. If that is to be believed then we seem to be on track there.
Ensuring environmental sustainability: We have not really taken this issue fully. There is much that we can do differently. The first being putting it on our list of national priorities along with education and health, because it is just as important. Consumption of ozone depleting CFCs in metric tons was 195 is base year. The target is 0 but now it is 155. It's a great challenge.
Developing a global partnership: It seems like Bangladesh is not sufficiently active in developing global partnerships. At present, Bangladesh is trying to build regional partnerships, and while that may be a good sign there is still much left to be done on the international scale. We need to be more active here.
The Millennium Development Goals that have to be achieved by 2015 correspond to the world's main development challenges. The MDGs are drawn from the actions and targets contained in the Millennium Declaration that was adopted by 189 nations and signed by 147 heads of state and governments during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000.
Reaching the targets will be a great challenge for Bangladesh. But it is not impossible. We have to give emphasis on employment, women empowerment, and education. These are the focal points. If we can develop in these areas then it will be easier to reach the MDGs targets.
Sayeed Arman is a Journalist and Human Rights Activist. Email: sayeed.arman@gmail.com

Development, regional cooperation top Ban?s talks with leader of Viet Nam

Source: UN News, Thursday, October 28, 2010

The global anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were among the issues discussed today by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and President Nguyen Minh Triet of Viet Nam in Hanoi.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon attends a Gala dinner in Hanoi, Viet Nam

The global anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were among the issues discussed today by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and President Nguyen Minh Triet of Viet Nam in Hanoi.

Mr. Ban thanked the Vietnamese leader for his country"s support for United Nations reform and commended the South-East Asian nation for its remarkable progress towards achieving the MDGs, the targets to slash hunger, poverty, disease and a host of other social and economic ills, all by 2015.

For his part, Viet Nam"s President expressed his deep gratitude for the longstanding support for the country"s development.

During their meeting, the two leaders also stressed their interest in making tomorrow"s UN-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Hanoi a success.

The Secretary-General arrived in Viet Nam from Cambodia, where earlier today he visited the Genocide Museum at Tuol Sleng, also known as the S-21 prison camp, where numerous Cambodians were unlawfully detained, subjected to inhumane conditions and forced labour, tortured and executed in the late 1970s.

In July, the UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia dealing with mass killings and other serious crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge three decades ago handed down its first verdict, finding the head of that camp guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Also known as Duch, Kaing Guek Eav was given a 35-year prison term.

"We know it is difficult to relive this terrible chapter in your history," Mr. Ban said at the museum, vowing that he will never forget his visit to the former prison. "But I want you to know: Your courage sends a powerful message to the world " that there can be no impunity, that crimes against humanity shall not go unpunished."

Under an agreement between the UN and the Cambodian Government, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) was set up as an independent court using a mixture of Cambodian staff and judges and foreign personnel. It is designated to try those deemed most responsible for crimes and serious violations of Cambodian and international law between 17 April 1975 and 6 January 1979.

As many as 2.2 million people are believed to have died during the rule of the Khmer Rouge, which was then followed by a protracted period of civil war in the impoverished country.

Speaking to reporters after visiting Tuol Seng, the Secretary-General said that any decisions on further trials by the ECCC must be made by the Court itself.

In its second case, the ECCC last month indicted the four most senior members of the Democratic Kampuchea regime who are still alive for crimes against humanity, genocide, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, as well as for violations of the 1956 Cambodian penal code, including murder, torture and religious persecution.

Garment sector may see additional unrest

The Phnom Penh Post

Wednesday, 27 October 2010 15:01 Mom Kunthear and James O’Toole

 

    

A LOCAL union at the centre of strikes last month in the garment industry threatened yesterday to renew work stoppages if the cases of suspended union representatives were not resolved by the end of the month.

Ek Sopheakdey, the secretary general of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union, said the CCAWDU had informed the government and industry representatives of the plan in a bid to aid union representatives suspended pending court rulings on the legality of last month’s strikes.

“We will do the strikes in front of stores and clothing shops, and we will announce to the world that garment factories in Cambodia abuse workers’ rights,” Ek Sopheakdey said.

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We will announce to the world that garment factories in Cambodia abuse workers’ rights.

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Officials from the Ministry of Social Affairs, Ek Sopheakdey added, had requested that CCAWDU give them more time to resolve the dispute before holding strikes.

Phin Sophea, a union representative at the River Rich garment factory in Kandal province, said 34 representatives at the site had met last week with officials from the Ministry of Social Affairs, who asked them to sign a three-point pledge in exchange for their return to work.

The three points, Phin Sophea said, called for workers to respect company regulations, to respect the Kingdom’s Labour Law and to stop inciting illegal strikes.

“We could not accept this last point in the agreement because if we agree, it seems like we’ve accepted that what we did was illegal,” Phin Sophea said.

Ket Chhoeun, a member of the Committee for the Settlement of Strikes and Demonstrations at the Ministry of Social Affairs who met with the River Rich workers, declined to comment yesterday.

A CCAWDU report released on Friday of last week said there were 94 union representatives who remained suspended in connection with last month’s strikes.

A total of 683 workers were dismissed after they protested the suspensions and then failed to heed a court order asking them to return to work within 48 hours, the CCAWDU said.

Ken Loo, secretary general of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia, said renewed legal action was “definitely on the table” in the event of a new round of strikes. He urged workers not to get involved, citing the negative impact a renewed work stoppage would have on the industry.

“If it comes around the second time, it won’t be simply about reputation – buyers will start to reconsider their operations ... because this would be deemed as a sign of unrest, and more importantly, it would be a sign that even with the government’s attempts at intervention, the unions don’t respect the law,” Loo said.

Tuomo Poutiainen, the chief technical adviser for the International Labour Organisation’s Better Factories Cambodia programme, said new work stoppages “wouldn’t be very helpful” as the parties tried to resolve their disagreements.

“It’s necessary that both sides will take a bit of a step back and try to find those positive steps,” Poutiainen said.

Loo said GMAC figures indicated that just 67 union representatives remained suspended in relation to last month’s strikes, and that 358 had been dismissed.

Cambodian trade level rises

The Phnom Penh Post

Tuesday, 26 October 2010 15:00 May Kunmakara

   

The value of Cambodia's total trade has risen by 18 percent in the first nine months of this year, compared to 2009. Photo by: Sovan Philong

CAMBODIA’S total trade has risen around 18 percent in the first nine months of this year, compared to the same period of 2009, fuelled by growing garment exports.

Data released by the Ministry of Commerce yesterday showed the Kingdom’s total imports and export were worth US$5.975 billion from January until September this year, from $5.05 billion last year. Total exports surged about 21 percent to $2.536 billion from $2.096 billion on last year, while the total imports rose by 16 percent to $3.44 billion.

Both government officials and an independent economist yesterday cited the improvement of the local economy and the diversification of markets as growth factors.

“We have made the trade deals with many countries in the region in order to make more exports this year, which we had not done last time,” said Ok Boung, secretary of state for the Ministry of Commerce.

Kang Chandararot, an independent economist and president of Cambodia Institute for Development Study, agreed.

“The surge reflects the recovery of our economy as well as the world – which show reliable [growth],” he said.

He added that the main driver for export growth was garment and textile exports, after the government launched a policy to enhance competitiveness and seek new markets rather than relying solely on exports to the United States and European Union. He said rising imports “emphasised the growth of our economy”.

Quarter on quarter, trade grew around 14 percent, reaching $2.293 billion in the third quarter from $2.017 billion in the second. Of that, exports rose 40 percent, while imports decined by 1.4 percent.

Ok Boung put the decrease down to a surplus of raw materials imported during the first half of 2010.

New garment factories come up, but orders falter

Source: Fibre2Fashion

October 25, 2010 (Cambodia)

As many as 20 new garment factories have been established in the Kingdom during the January to September period this year, but labour strikes have lead to a considerable fall in the orders. Though buyers were placing repeat orders with the Cambodian factories, but some of the buyers were petrified to place their orders, owing to repetitive strikes since September. Each of the 20 newly established factories is believed to be employing around 300 to 500 workers, however the employment ratio is expected to go higher, following the rise in production. However, some of the factories even closed down during the period under consideration. Also no new garment factories have been opened so far this month, as the prospective investors were waiting to observe the industry performance and scenario after the workers’ strike.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

Curing the Manufacturing Fetish

Source:Benzinga,
The Trading Idea Network
By Charles Krakoff
October 24, 2010 16:03 PM

In the Financial Times, possibly the best newspaper in the world and full of intelligent reporting and comment, John Kay stands out for his incisive take and economy of expression. One of his most recent articles, “Why you can have an economy of people who don't sweat,” takes to task the “manufacturing fetishists” who believe that any economic activity apart from manufacturing, agriculture, or mining is of minimal real value. We are all prey to this attitude to some degree, especially in the wake of the financial crisis, which saw economies that rely heavily on a somehow “unreal” financial sector have fared worse than those economies more focused on production of things you can drop on your toe.
I have long been troubled by this attitude, to which we all are susceptible. Somehow, a banker inventing and flogging new forms of derivatives or trading algorithms seems morally and economically less worthy than someone who makes pig iron or beer for a living, and this view may be justified. But on close examination, many other jobs, which involve more brains than brawn, generate far more real value, however you care to measure it, than tightening bolts or stitching sleeves on an assembly line.
Kay mentions Apple's iPod  as a product in which the value added from manufacturing the device itself, including the extraction and processing of the metals and plastics it contains, amounts to three or four dollars of the two or three hundred dollars the finished product sells for. Product and production design, marketing and promotion, and logistics and distribution are where the real value is created. This is increasingly true of almost any physical product we buy. When you pay several dollars a tablet for your heart medicine or Viagra, the value resides not in the cost of producing the pill itself, which in most cases amounts to fractions of a cent, but in the billions of dollars spent on research and development and testing: the intellectual value. Even if pharmaceutical companies are often guilty of inventing cures for conditions no one knew existed until they saw the TV commercials, the intrinsic value of much of what they produce is incalculable, and has little to do with the hourly wages of workers on the assembly line. Kay also cites the example of book publishing, in which “the books that Britain exports have, for as long as I can remember, been made from trees grown abroad; but then globalization meant the paper was also made abroad, and increasingly the printing took place overseas. Soon shipments will be entirely electronic; selling a book will involve no physical objects.”
Lately I have been working on development of industrial parks in Haiti, in which international garment manufacturers, attracted by cheap labor, special trade preferences, and proximity to the U.S. market, will set up factories.
This is unpopular in many quarters. Anti-globalists point to the exploitation of poor Haitians. A Haitian garment worker can expect to make less than six percent of the earnings of an American on minimum wage. Working and living conditions will be poor, and a worker might spend a quarter of his daily earnings for transport to and from work. Though the factories for the most part are clean and well-lighted and ventilated, it is not an easy life. Many also decry the shipment of American jobs overseas, as if employing Americans as minimum-wage sewing machine operators were vital to our national interest.
Most of the garment manufacturers likely to invest in Haiti's industrial parks are Korean companies. Once Korea itself was a huge manufacturer and exporter of clothing, but as Korea grew richer it could no longer compete with lower-wage countries. But the Korean companies that had formerly made garments in Korean factories using Korean workers did not quit the business. Instead, they began setting up factories in places like Vietnam and Cambodia and Honduras and Nicaragua, which, with Korean experience and know-how, became some of the most efficient manufacturing operations in the world. The Korean companies integrated these factories into their global supply chains, becoming suppliers of choice to U.S. clothing companies and retailers like Levi Strauss, Wal-Mart, Nike, and Gap.
When you buy a pair of Levi's made in Haiti, what is the source of value in the product? Is it the product design, distribution, quality control, and marketing provided by Levi Strauss? Is it the factory design and construction, production engineering and management, fabric sourcing, and logistics provided by the Korean manufacturer? Or is it the Haitian sewing machine operator? Obviously, all participants in this complex supply chain play an essential role, but you'd have to be a devout Marxist to argue that the product's value resides exclusively or mainly in the direct manufacturing labor. That may have been the case in the 19^th century, but certainly is not in the 21^st. What differentiates one product from another, except perhaps for hand-made watches costing $100,000 and up, is not the skill and hard work of the laborer but the design, engineering, production management, logistics, distribution, and marketing that transform an idea into a tangible item.
It goes even further. The end product needn't even be tangible, as John Kay points out in his example of book publishing. To put it another way, why do most of us instinctively feel that manufacturing a TV set is somehow a more worthy activity than producing a TV show?
Our entire way of looking at the economy is conditioned by this bias. We talk about our balance of trade, but although statisticians and econometricians do their best to quantify trade in services, such data are much harder to capture than information on trade in physical goods. When a software package is exported or an engineering firm designs and manages construction of a new road in another country, those transactions show up in the balance of trade of both the exporting and the importing country. But it gets far more complex when we consider all the trade in non-tangible items and services that take place within a single company or supply chain. When Gap sends its new T-shirt design to a manufacturer in Haiti it is effectively exporting its intellectual property to the manufacturer. When an engineer flies from Korea to Haiti to oversee the retooling of the manufacturing line for the new product, his employer in Korea is exporting his know-how. But it's unlikely that either of these transactions shows up in official trade statistics. So, to complement our manufacturing bias, we have a system of recording data that fails to capture much of the value of non-physical trade and thus devalues that trade in the estimation of both the public and the policy markers who rely on those data.
It gets worse. Engineering is still considered a noble endeavor, but mainly because it remains directly linked to the production of something physical, be it a toaster, a bridge, or a pair of pantyhose. But a designer? Someone who slaps his initials on a T-shirt so as to sell it for ten times the price of the equivalent generic product. Where's the value in that? And what about the marketers, the shippers, the wholesalers, the retailers, and the advertisers, not to mention the customer support staff? Useless parasites all of them, in the popular view, selling us stuff we don't need and adding layer upon layer of profit to make everything more expensive than it should be. A moment's reflection should dispel that belief, but it doesn't. So Wal-Mart, which has outsourced much of its manufacturing to China, is considered a villain for shipping American jobs overseas, even though it has devised one of the most sophisticated systems of distribution, logistics and inventory management on the planet, which employs 2.1 million people worldwide, 1.4 million of them in the U.S.
The garment industry is an especially pertinent example, because it employs so many people and, in many poor countries, is the first step on the path to industrialization and greater prosperity. It is also one of the first industries to leave a place when the cost of production rises, usually as a function of rising wages. It happened in the U.S. right after WWII, when New England textile mills moved to the Carolinas, attracted by lower wages, less powerful unions, and cheaper electricity. It has happened again as textile and garment companies moved their factories to Mexico and El Salvador and Lesotho and China, and now Vietnam, Cambodia, and Haiti. Each time this happens there are recriminations and self-criticism. We are losing the manufacturing base that makes us strong. Our leaders should have done more to keep the jobs here. Those underhanded foreigners are grabbing “our” jobs.
If this were actually true, and if the migration of low-skill, low-paid jobs to poorer countries were such a threat, unemployment in the U.S. would be much higher than it is, whereas, until the current recession hit, we had one of the lowest unemployment rates of any advanced country. Some proportion of the U.S. labor force does work slinging burgers, greeting shoppers at Wal-Mart, and calling you at dinnertime to sell you a new cable TV service, but that's only a fraction of the total. In Massachusetts, where I live, many of the textile jobs that went south and then overseas were replaced by higher-skilled and better-paid jobs in information technology, telecommunications, biotechnology, and finance. If our government had tried to resist the economic tide and preserve those textile jobs, these new industries might never have emerged. We should rejoice at these trends instead of seeing them as emblematic of the failure of our system of economic governance.
In John Kay's words, “The productivity of moder

Bangkok to vote on border

The Phnom Penh Post

Wednesday, 20 October 2010 22:17 Cheang Sokha

 

   

Thailand’s parliament is set to approve the latest round of border negotiations with Cambodia, a move that could bring the neighbours closer to resolving long-standing differences over their shared boundary.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told a delegation of visiting Cambodian journalists in Bangkok that debate on the minutes of three Joint Border Committee meetings would likely open at the Thai parliament next Tuesday.
Negotiations of the bilateral JBC have been stalled since April of last year pending the Thai parliament’s approval of the latest agreements.
“We’re just hopeful that the endorsement of the agreed minutes will pave the way for the future work of the JBC, which should help address the border issues in a comprehensive manner,” Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy spokesman Thani Thongphakdi said.
At the previous three JBC and foreign minister meetings, Thailand and Cambodia agreed to undertake joint demining and demarcation projects along the border near Preah Vihear temple, and to redeploy troops in the area in a bid to ease tensions.
At least seven soldiers have been killed in clashes in the area since 2008.
Prime Minister Hun Sen said in a speech last week that the approval of the JBC negotiations and the withdrawal of Thai troops near the temple would yield a swift resolution of the countries’ disagreements.
“If the troops are redeployed from that area, it is finished,” Hun Sen said

UBELONG Contributes to Reaching the MDGs In Cambodia

Source: I-Newswire, 16 October 2010

In September we proudly supported our volunteering projects in Cambodia by donating money from the UBELONG Fund to help reach the UN's Millennium Development Goals.

(I-Newswire) Washington, DC, October 16, 2010 - We recently proudly supported our volunteering projects in Cambodia by donating money from the UBELONG Fund to the Salvation Center Cambodia (SCC), a local Cambodian organization devoted to sustainable community development. The money was used to help a school for disadvantaged children in the Som Reang Mean Chey community of Phnom Penh. Specifically, it went to provide the children with school uniforms and materials, including plants for the school’s educational garden.

Our donation was made as part of a larger city-wide event that brought together various organizations to raise awareness and fundraising in support of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to end extreme poverty by 2015. During the event, volunteers from across the world solicited donations from local business and held discussions with locals and tourists about the MDGs. The volunteers also played games with local children and helped them to create community gardens and learn English.

For the volunteers, the festivities were an opportunity to learn about the MDGs, as well as contribute firsthand to poverty alleviation efforts. In line with the UBELONG mission, volunteers of all backgrounds were able to contribute and make a difference. UBELONG co-founder Raul Roman was in Cambodia visiting the UBELONG projects during the run-up to the event and, as he notes: “It was inspiring to see locals and international volunteers from all walks of life working together. Any barriers that may have existed because of culture, language or nationality were overcome as people came together with the aim of making a positive difference.”

Looking ahead, we look forward to continuing our support of local organization like SCC. In the next 12 months we anticipate that over 1,000 volunteers of all backgrounds and nationalities will join our programs. These volunteers represent the core of our efforts to assist communities. We encourage you to explore our volunteering opportunities in both Cambodia and the rest of the world, and to help spread the word about UBELONG.

To learn more about our projects in Cambodia and throughout the world, please visit www.ubelong.org.


About UBELONG:
We aim to offer the world's most affordable, flexible and meaningful one week to six month international volunteering opportunities. We are based in Washington, DC and led by international development professionals and former volunteers.

We empower people of all backgrounds to live in a community and work on a local project that has a need for volunteers. We believe that everyone can make a difference if they are given the chance.

Company Contact Information
UBELONG
Cedric Hodgeman
1630 R Street NW Suite 5
Washington, DC
20009
Phone : 2022503706

Draft budget approved

The Phnom Penh Post

Sunday, 17 October 2010 22:20 Nguon Sovan and James O’Toole

 

   

The Council of Ministers has approved a draft budget law for 2011 calling for an increase in spending of more than US$400 million compared to last year, including a $22 million rise in national security and defence spending.

Although a sector-by-sector breakdown of the budget was not available, Cheam Yeap, the chairman of the National Assembly’s Banking and Finance Committee, said spending would target key “social needs”.
“For Cambodia, our priority sectors are still education, health, rural development, agriculture, women’s affairs, social affairs and physical infrastructure,” Cheam Yeap said.
The draft budget calls for $2.4 billion in spending for 2011, up from $1.97 billion for this year, for a roughly 18 percent increase. This year’s $1.97 billion represented roughly a 4.6 percent increase from the previous year.

Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said the budget for defence and security spending had risen from $276 million to $298 million.

This bump, he said, had been driven mainly by the military wage bill

Sreelatha Menon: The better factories

 

 Sustainable Development

Sreelatha Menon, 10.10.2010

 

Master degree in international development studies in Geneva. 

It is unfortunate when nations can’t care for their own when it comes to protecting the rights of their workers. It required a global cop to get garment factories in Cambodia to work towards being decent work places for poor migrant women.
The global supervisor in this case was the International Labour Organisation (ILO) which ten years ago donned the role of a labour inspector when it started the Better Factories initiative.
Ten years ago, the Cambodian government was forced to go to ILO for inking a trade agreement with the United States which insisted it would accept shipments from only countries that complied with international labour standards.
What makes a factory a decent work place?
If workers are allowed to form associations for collective bargaining, if they are not made to work more than the hours for which they are paid, if there is no forced or child labour and if the women workers get maternity benefits. These ifs are often missing when factories become sweat shops and production targets justify everything.
Cambodia is a small country with 300 garment factories and could have easily bundled all of these into a special economic zone immune from labour inspections and trade unionism.
Tuomo Poutiainen, the technical advisor to the Better Factories project, says ILO was loathe to take up this assignment but the small size of the project prompted it to go ahead.
The scheme has seen factories become part of a unique equation between suppliers, buyers, workers and trade unions, with ILO playing mediator.
Its excellent record on the labour law front has made Cambodia a favoured supplier for many companies which do not want disputes and labour law violations to harm their brand value, says Poutiainen
The main task ILO does is to have its 36-member staff act as labour inspectors who visit factories once a year and interview the workers. Where there are problems, solutions are found to the satisfaction of all concerned
ILO then puts together reports on each of these factories. These are bought by the garment buyers as a warranty for the products they buy from these factories. While this protects the rights of workers, the businesses get a smooth flow of orders.
Now, many counties want ILO to implement a Better Factories project for them, says Poutiainen. The project is nothing but labour inspection under the orders of the government. In addition, there has been some capacity building and effort to make the mostly illiterate seamstresses learn new skills to take them up the value chain.
Of course there won’t be another Better Factories project run by ILO. The UN agency is, however, going to partner with NGOs in countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and Morocco for a modified Better Work project for their garment factories.
It is not that the presence of ILO has gagged the unions or eliminated strikes in Combodia. There are strikes all the time, a sign of workers continuing to have a say in matters. For instance, if a strike is on over wages, then ILO mediates and suggests solutions and keeps monitoring to the satisfaction of all concerned, says Poutianan.
He feels the arrangement has helped businesses as well as workers. But most benefits have gone to buyers who don’t have to spend on checking if their suppliers are violating the labour law. ILO sees these buyers as stakeholders who can be expected to fund such third-party inspection projects in other countries. The difference is that industry in Cambodia has realised the benefits of being fair.
In countries like India, labour departments don’t have the kind of backing required to do their job with the freedom that ILO has in Cambodia. So, only wiser governments can have better factories.

Hunger levels ‘alarming’, report finds

The Phnom Penh Post

Tuesday, 12 October 2010 15:02 James O’Toole and Phak Seangly

 

   

CAMBODIA is one of 25 countries worldwide facing an “alarming” level of hunger, with dangerous levels of malnutrition and child mortality, according to a report released in the United States yesterday.

Using data gathered from 2003 to 2008, the report – termed the “Global Hunger Index” and produced by the International Food Policy Research Institute, Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe – said Cambodia and other countries that received poor index scores needed to focus on improving child undernutrition.

“To reduce child undernutrition, governments should invest in effective nutrition interventions targeted to mothers and children,” the report said, recommending improved maternal nutrition during pregnancies, promotion of proper breastfeeding practices and salt iodisation.

The Kingdom ranked 58th out of 84 developing countries measured in the index, and among Asian countries, placed ahead only of India, Bangladesh and Timor-Leste. In creating the index, researchers took into account data on the proportion of undernourished people in a country, the prevalence of underweight children and the child mortality rate.

Heng Taykry, a secretary of state at the Ministry of Health, said challenges outlined in the report were common in developing countries like Cambodia.

“Everywhere, there is hunger,” he said. “[Cambodian] families must work hard to improve their standard of living; this is not a challenge just for the health ministry, but for the whole country.”

Almost 40 percent of Cambodian children are chronically malnourished, according to the United Nations World Food Programme, and one-third of Cambodians are considered “food insecure”, while 26 percent of the overall population is undernourished.

The United Nations Millenium Development Goal for child mortality calls for Cambodia’s baseline rate of 124 deaths per 1,000 live births to drop to 41 by the year 2015. To meet the locally adopted target for the goal, the mortality rate would need to fall to 66 deaths per 1,000 live births.

AAFA welcomes DOL grant for Better Work Nicaragua

Fibre2Fashion.com

October 07, 2010 (USA)

The American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) applauded the U.S. Department of Labor’s announcement of a $2 million grant to implement the International Labor Organization's (ILO) Better Work program in Nicaragua. “The Announcement by the U.S. Department of Labor is a welcome step forward in furthering safe, ethical, and humane workplaces in Nicaragua,” said AAFA Executive Vice President Steve Lamar. “The outcome of this Better Work program is a win-win. This grant will not only help improve the lives of garment workers in Nicaragua but will, in turn, help create jobs for U.S. workers in the U.S. textile and apparel industry.” "We applaud the Nicaraguan garment industry, the Nicaraguan workers, the Nicaraguan government for coming together with their buyers, U.S. brands, and retailers, to jointly make this commitment to launch the ILO Better Work Program,” said Lamar. "Without this commitment and without the U.S. Department of Labor's critical support, today's announcement could not have been possible." Nicaragua is the 13th largest supplier of apparel products to the United States. As a member of the U.S. - Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), garments produced in Nicaragua have duty-free access to the United States when they use U.S.-made textiles. By strengthening Nicaragua’s position in the global apparel industry, the ILO Better Work program strengthens our mutually beneficial relationship between the U.S. and Nicaraguan textile and apparel industries. "We look forward to working with all of the stakeholders to make the ILO Better Work Program in Nicaragua a success," concluded Lamar.

American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA)

DOL implements Better Work in the garment sector

Source: Fibre2fashion.com

October 07, 2010 (Nicaragua)

Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis announced a $2 million grant award to implement a Better Work program in Nicaragua. The grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs will be implemented by the International Labor Organization. "Better Work is a highly successful strategy that was first developed in Cambodia 10 years ago. Its elements are worth replicating in other countries as a means of protecting workers' rights while promoting development," said Secretary Solis. "Nicaragua joins those countries that embrace what is considered a gold standard for the respect of labor rights in the garment sector." Better Work is a unique partnership program of the ILO and the International Finance Corp., which seeks to improve labor conditions in global supply chains, both to protect workers' rights and to help enterprises become more competitive. The Better Work program monitors conditions in export factories, publishes the results in a transparent manner, and assists suppliers to comply with labor standards that many buyers and customers demand. Better Work Nicaragua will focus on labor standards compliance in the country's garment factories. The program will engage the Nicaraguan Ministry of Labor, National Free Trade Commission, factory managers, employer organizations and trade unions, and provide guidance on challenges and solutions to labor compliance in ways that increase the viability of companies. Many multinational brands have expressed support for this project, including Columbia Sportswear, Gap Inc., Fishman & Tobin, Gildan, Levi Strauss & Co., Sears Corp., Target Corp., Walmart and VF Corp.

U.S. Department of Labor

Stones of contention

Source: Southeast Asia Globe

28 September 2010 Charlie Lancaster

 

The 1907 map, on which the 1962 ICJ ruling was based, placed the temple within Cambodia

For decades, Preah Vihear has been witness to a war of words and sporadic fights between Cambodian and Thai troops over territorial claims.
The 11th century cultural tourist site lies at the heart of a border dispute that harks back 100 years and was re-ignited in 1954 when Thai forces occupied the temple following French withdrawal from Cambodia. Cambodia's successful bid to have the temple listed as a Unesco World Heritage site in July 2008 sparked the recent series of cross-border spats and political posturing. Since then, nationalists, media sensationalists and politicians pursuing private agendas have commandeered the temple. All the while, tourists and cultural enthusiasts are left waiting in the wings for the curtain to finally close on the drama, so they can visit this World Heritage site in peace.
It is in no one's interest for the issue to spiral out of control, for the disputed land surrounding the temple to turn into a 'zone of death', as Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, once threatened or for Thailand to employ military force to resolve the issue, as The Nation quoted Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva as saying in August. Dialogue, with or without Asean as a mediating body, is the best hope for a peaceful solution. But why is this conflict dragging on? Who, or what, is adding fuel to the fire?

The watershed affair

The 900-year-old temple was built at the height of the Khmer empire. In 1904, Siam and French authorities ruling Cambodia formed a joint commission to demarcate their mutual border along the watershed line of the Dangrek mountain range, which would have placed nearly all of Preah Vihear temple on Thailand's side. However, when France drew up a topographic map to identify the border's location in 1907, the line deviated from the watershed in the Preah Vihear area, placing the entire temple within Cambodia. Crucially, Thailand did not immediately contest this map, on which the 1962 International Court of Justice ruling concluded the temple was "situated in territory under the Sovereignty of Cambodia" was based.
Though the ruling settled the temple issue, it left open the now disputed 4.6 sq km of land that lies in the area of the watershed line near the temple.
The territorial row, which simmered for years, reached boiling point when Preah Vihear was listed as a World Heritage site in 2008. Since then misinformed nationalist groups have cried outrage, the media has shamelessly inflamed the issue, diplomacy has failed and over ten people have been killed and many more injured in cross-border fire.

A tale of two issues

To understand the conflict, it is important to separate the border dispute from the temple – while they are intricately linked, ultimately they are two distinct issues.
The temple sits on a cliff top and is only easily accessible from the north, which is in Thailand. There is little dispute over the Cambodian-owned temple, but rather the 4.6 sq km surrounding land, that is claimed by both Cambodia and Thailand – who doesn't recognise the 1907 border.

Paper trail

In June 2000, Cambodia and Thailand signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the survey and demarcation of their shared 800km long borderline. In it both sides agreed not to develop the frontier zones until a common boundary is established.
In 2008, the two countries signed a Joint Communique, which paved the way for Preah Vihear's inscription as a World Heritage site in the same year. The agreement details the spirit of cooperation of both countries towards the temple's inscription and stipulates its new status does not affect border demarcation.
Bizarrely, to date the Cambodian government has not disseminated copies of either agreement or the attached conditions to the public. And it is even more remarkable that the Cambodian press has not questioned why. In fact, the existence of the 2008 agreement is little known in Cambodia.
While Thai governments – under Samak Sundaravei, Somchai Wongsawat and Abhisit Vejjajiva – have regularly referred to recent mutual agreements and decisions to address the border dispute, their Cambodian counterpart disregards such documents, instead falling back on decisions made more than 100 years ago.
Management plan
As a condition attached to the temple's inscription as a World Heritage site, Cambodia must produce a management plan in cooperation with Thailand and an international group of up to seven countries. The plan submitted to the 34th World Heritage Committee session in June addresses archaeological, historical and cultural issues, but failed to include Thailand or an international group in the discussion. Obviously, this bears the risk that Thai PM Abhisit will not accept any World Heritage Committee procedure unless Thailand is involved in drafting the management plan.
With Cambodia and Thailand once again at an impasse, the World Heritage Committee decided to postpone the discussion of the management plan unilaterally developed by Cambodia until the next meeting in Bahrain next year – something the Cambodians seem to consider a "victory".

Politics of nationalism

The Thai national group, the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) has adopted Preah Vihear and the border dispute as a rallying point in their anti-government protests – despite the fact they often confuse the two issues and present muddled, mis-informed arguments. For example, in August when PAD demonstrated outside the Unesco Bangkok office calling for an end to the 2000 MoU because it 'turned a Thai territory into a disputed territory', Abhisit clarified that the agreement had no provision that could be construed as conceding to the 1907 French-drawn map. On the contrary, he told the leaders during a three-hour live television debate, the MoU effectively turns land Cambodia says belongs to them into a disputed territory.

"Abhisit clearly separates the border issue from the temple issue," says Norbert Klein, founder of The Mirror, an online site that provides a daily overview of the Khmer language press in English. "The Thai demonstrators confuse the two, or want to bind them together. Abhisit is careful not to do this, firstly because they are distinct issues, and secondly because the 2000 border MoU is valuable for Thailand in it's own right, whatever happens to Preah Vihear."
Given the temple has fed nationalistic fervour that contributed to the resignation of foreign minister Noppadon Pattama in 2008, the Thai government cannot be seen to back down and must appease nationalist factions of their electorate.
 Across the border, national fervour is easily whipped up in a country little proud of its recent history but immensely proud of its Angkorian heritage,
Whether whipping up a frenzy or calming a storm, leaders in both countries exploit nationalism to further their political agenda, distract attention from domestic issues, or to use it as an electoral tactic as Hun Sen did in 2008.
In 2003, Hun Sen was partially blamed for stirring up anti-Thai sentiments that led to Cambodian nationalists burning down the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh after a Thai actress was misquoted as saying Angkor Wat should belong to Thailand.
It is interesting to observe, however, that in both countries, the government and the opposition easily unite when they question how to deal with Preah Vihear. For instance, the Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy now praises Hun Sen for bringing the problem to the United Nations.

War of words

Diplomacy, which has repeatedly fallen at the wayside during this dispute, has been replaced by a war of words and tit for tat name-calling.
Whether verbal provocation has been intentional or a series of unfortunately timed gaffs, cross-border spats are stymieing and ridiculing the dispute. In August, Pen Ngoeun, advisor to the office of the council of ministers and a member of the advisory board of its press and quick reaction unit, published a letter saying Thailand's "intoxicating" campaign makes them act like a "hungry dog that missed a good piece of meat". Such comments are hardly conducive to finding a peaceful and speedy solution.
Meanwhile sensationalist media stories on both sides of the border fuel the conflict with inaccurate reporting, preferring to use emotive language over facts. The most recent round of spats was sparked when The Nation quoted Abhisit threatening the use of military means to end the border dispute. Abhisit says his comments were taken out of context, but the damage was done. Hun Sen used it as a pretext to call on Asean to act as a third party mediator, while Abhisit's calls for his neighbour to base decisions on bilateral talks and not on media reports fell on deaf ears.
Meanwhile in Cambodia, the press is seemingly more interested in deciding if the World Heritage Committee decision was delayed, postponed, deferred or adjourned than questioning why their government is not being held accountable to agreements made with Thailand and world bodies.

Solutions

It is in neither country's interest to let the conflict get out of hand. If both governments can hold back on incendiary comments and respect agreements, then it should be possible to do as Hun Sen suggested in early August and use, "dialogue to solve the rest of the problem. I don't want winning or losing – it is better that we win together solving this problem."
Leaders may have to persuade nationalist factions that a joint Thai-Cambodian World Heritage site makes sense, while the media may have to refrain from using inflammatory language to boost sales.

All official documents and maps relating to the Preah Vihear conflict can be found on the Cambodian Mirror website.

MDGs in 2011 local budget pushed

Source: Business World
October 08, 2010
TACLOBAN CITY -- The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has asked local government units to consider programs that will meet UN-sponsored Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in planning for their 2011 budget.
Imelda Laceras, DBM regional director said the department will gather governors and mayors in Eastern Visayas for two days In November to discuss ways to link budget planning with MDG targets.

With 48.5% of the region’s population still living below the poverty threshold, Ms. Laceras said there is a need for local officials to refocus the use of internal revenue allotment (IRA) to improve the plight of poor families.

"Local governments should follow the direction of the National Government in alleviating poverty using the budget. In our upcoming meeting we will focus on discussing the role of local chief executives in preparing the budget," she said.

Local government units have started drafting their 2011 budget, but Ms. Laceras said there is still time to insert MDG-related targets before the budget is forwarded to the DBM central office.

"The region has many things to do to meet MDG targets. Yearly budgeting should be refocused to address the concern of sectors where we are lagging behind," she added.

"I encourage local planners to review MDG statistics and find out how to address these concerns using their internal revenue allotment," Ms. Laceras said.

The region’s IRA for local government units reached P15.97 billion for 2010, or 6% of the of the P265.80-billion allocation nationwide.

Based on the latest report, Region 8 has been lagging behind in goals to achieve universal primary education with only 63.6% and 62.6% of children completing elementary and secondary education, respectively.

The region also scored low in the promotion of gender equality and empowering women especially in terms of education and politics.

Improving maternal health is another concern in view of the high maternal mortality rate and preference of mothers to seek the services of traditional birth attendants.

On a national level, the country is also lagging in universal primary education and maternal health. Its third concern is the spread of human immunovirus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS).

Meanwhile, the spike in dengue cases in the region this year has dragged down the performance in combating diseases. However, the region registered better score in terms reducing child mortality.

Contributing to the high score gained in ensuring environmental sustainability is the proportion of households with access to safe water (83.8%) and with sanitary toilet facility (77.4%).

MDGs are a set of eight time-bound, concrete and specific targets aimed at significantly reducing, if not decisively eradicating poverty, by the year 2015.

Meanwhile, Ilocos Norte Rep. Imelda R. Marcos (2^nd district) wants to raise $10 billion or around P400 billion to alleviate poverty.

The former first lady has filed House Bill 3252 which seeks to set up the Millennium Development Fund, a savings-investment fund that will tap remittances to support MDG-related local government project, with emphasis on barangay-level self-sustaining education, health and livelihood projects.

"Present efforts have not met some major [MDG] targets so we have to double our initiatives to speed up our country’s drive towards our goals," Ms. Marcos, Ms. Marcos, chairman of the special committee on MDG, told reporters Friday. -- Sarwell Q. Meniano with an input from Noemi M. Gonzales

Six countries receive MDG Awards 2010

Source: The New Nation, Bangladesh's Independent News Source
September 21, 2010


News agencies



Besides Bangladesh, five other countries, three from Africa and two from Asia received the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Awards for their significant achievements towards attaining the goal.

In September 2000, world leaders endorsed the Millennium Declaration, a commitment to work together to build a safer, more prosperous and equitable world. The Declaration was translated into a roadmap setting out eight time-bound and measurable goals to be reached by 2015, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): They include goals and targets on poverty, hunger, maternal and child mortality, disease, inadequate shelter, gender inequality, environmental degradation and the Global Partnership for Development.

Bangladesh received the UN award for its remarkable achievements in attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) particularly in reducing child mortality. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina accepted the award at a colourful function at New York's Astoria Hotel on Sunday.

Nepal has received a Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Award for significantly improving maternal health. Nepal's permanent representative to the UN, Gyan Chandra Acharya, received the award on behalf of the government at a function in New York, Sunday. Secretary at the health ministry Dr Sudha Sharma was also present at the awards ceremony.

Nepal was selected for the award from among 49 Least Developed Countries (LDC)s for the outstanding national leadership, commitment and progress towards achievement of the MDG goal related to improving maternal health.

Cambodia has been presented with a Millennium Development Goals Award for its national leadership, commitment and progress towards achievement of Goal 6 - Combating HIV, malaria and other diseases.

Cambodia has been honored within the 'Government' category of the annual Awards initiative, presented at a high-profile event in New York City.

Sierra Leone received the United Nations Millenium Development Goal ( MDG ) Award in recognition of President Ernest Koroma 's remarkable leadership commitment and progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Goal Six. During a grand MDG Awards Banquet on Sunday night

Liberia has been named as the winner of this year's prestigious Millennium Development Goal Three (MDG 3) award for outstanding leadership, commitment and progress toward the achievement of the MDG-3 through the promotion of gender equality and women's empowerment across the country.

Rwanda has been nominated for two Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) awards for its efforts to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health.

Rwanda was nominated for the awards in two categories, MDG Goal 4 of Reducing Child Mortality and Goal 5 of Improving Maternal Health which target reducing the mortality rate of children under five years by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015 and the maternal mortality rate by three quarters, respectively.

Garment exports on target

Workers make clothes for export at a factory in the northern province of Ninh Binh. The textile and garment industry is on track to reach its annual export target of US$10.5 billion by November. — VNA/VNS Photo Tran Viet

Source: Vietnam News, October 5, 2010
HA NOI — The textile and garment industry will meet its annual export target of US$10.5 billion by November, said vice chairman and general secretary of the Viet Nam Textile and Apparel Association (Vitas) Le Van Dao.

Dao estimated that the industry would earn more than $1 billion each month in the fourth quarter.

September was the third consecutive month the industry fetched more than $1 billion from exports, bringing the sector's total export value in the first nine months of this year to more than $8 billion, a year-on-year increase of 20.6 per cent, according to the General Statistics Office.

Dao said many garment exporters had orders for the end of this year and even for the beginning of next year.

Over the past nine months, exports to the big markets have recorded high growth. Exports to the US increased 22.1 per cent to $3.94 billion while the rising figures to the EU and Japan were 6.7 per cent and 14.3 per cent to $1.18 billion and $691 million, respectively.

Exports to North Korea surged 64 per cent thanks to the impact of its Free Trade Agreement with ASEAN.

However, Pham Xuan Hong, Vitas deputy chairman, said the garment industry was facing a shortage of labour and an increase in the price of transport and power.

A surge in the price of cotton on the world market also had a negative impact on the industry. A tonne of cotton has risen 45 per cent since the same period last year to $1,900-2,000 while the industry has to import up to 95 per cent of its cotton. The industry imported 260,000 tonnes of cotton in the first nine months of the year and estimates that figure will reach roughly 370,000 tonnes by the end of the year.

Hong said garment exporters were seeking new sources from Japan and ASEAN countries in order to enjoy preferential taxes.

To fulfil the target of $19 billion from exports by 2015 and $25 billion by 2020, the garment sector is actively implementing programmes related to cotton cultivation to increase domestic supplies and develop human resources to meet the increasing demands of the sector.

The sector is also promoting its trademark and setting up distribution networks nationwide to take a firm foothold in the domestic market. — VNS

It's The End of The Road To The MDGs

By SOP newswire2

New York (Women`s Feature Service) - The Big Apple - the metropolis of opportunity and hope - saw the world gather to review whether opportunities and hope existed in any manner for those who were falling off the world`s radar screen. This two-day UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that began in New York on September 20, marked a full decade since the countries of the world had committed themselves to the MDGs. The intervening years had seen a great deal of activism and energy; witnessed many commitments, plans and negotiations. It was now time for stock-taking. Time to look at the world`s poor in the eye and assess if the promises made in their name had been upheld.

Governments, civil society groups, and concerned citizens found their way to New York, home to the UN office, to collectively review progress on the MDGs and chart a plan for the remaining five years. For social activists, particularly, it had been a very long walk. They had worked all these years to make the MDGs more meaningful and had constantly reminded their own governments as well as global leaders to deliver on their commitments, even if those were well below what were required.

This decade of hope, however, culminated in disappointment, frustration and anger, as the innumerable meetings and talks gave way to very little concrete or meaningful action. As Irungu Houghton of Oxfam put it, "The governments wrote a cheque and it bounced."

The feeling of promises made but not delivered ran strong across most civil society groups who had gathered at New York. They had come hoping that a breakthrough plan will be delivered; that the commitments made in 2000 actually meant something; and that an honest effort would be made to see how the world might get back on track with respect to the goals that had been set. Quite apart from actually making such an effort, even the interest in making any sort of effort seemed to be missing.

Civil society activists also noted with despair how the outcome document that came at the end of the process reflected little commitment to using the next five years to ensure some progress. The language in the outcome document prepared by the UN has been so diluted that it meant nothing. Where the initial document in 2000 spoke of `sparing no effort` in reducing poverty, the document in 2010 merely talked of a `matter of deep concern`. Asked Roberto Bissio of Social Watch, "What happened to the efforts that were not to be spared? Would the poor have been rescued if they had been a bank?"

Several civil society leaders rated the summit a `C`, in its diluted language from the earlier document, in its inability to articulate and outline tangible actions for the remaining five years and in its failure to reflect any real concern or commitment to the world`s poor. The absence of a human rights perspective was particularly disappointing.

Missing also was any reflection on the feminisation of poverty and its many manifestations and causes. This has been a matter of deep concern from the time that the MDGs came into being and many women`s groups had, in fact, been critical of the MDGs precisely for their complete lack of understanding and reflection of gender as a social justice issue. This lag has continued and many women`s groups, who had not embraced the MDGs, were conspicuous by their absence at the Summit. The few women`s groups that did participate attempted to bring attention to such critical issues, but it was disappointing that other civil society organisations did not embrace women`s issues in any meaningful manner. Overall, women`s groups were right in feeling that the outcome document had failed to outline any mechanism for the implementation of gender justice. Even where some governments, such as the Norwegian government, were vocal about the need for gender equality, there was little bite in the bark. The UN Secretary

General`s strategy on women`s and children`s health has been welcomed, but the absence of reproductive health rights components in it caused deep concern.

The formation of UN Women, with the recent announcement of Michelle Bachelet, a strong leader and former President of Chile as its head, has brought some hope and energy for a refocus on gender justice issues. We will have to see if this happens. But, clearly, at this much-awaited Summit, the lack of leadership for social justice was palpable. It is only to be hoped that the next decade will see leaders emerge who bring attention back to delivery and democratic development as well as ensure that there are renewed efforts to enable citizens to hold governments accountable.

Hopefully, too, the five years to the deadline year of 2015, when the commitments on the MDGs have to be met, will see a fresh emphasis on Goal Eight, which has received the least attention until now. Many social activists in New York felt that while Goal Eight - which talks of global partnerships - is critical in driving the other MDGs, it is the one goal that has no indicators and tangible deliverables.

Thus while there was complete clarity that it is the governments that have to be held accountable to the progress on commitments, it was also simultaneously recognised that much more needs to be done by different actors coming together. The recognition of the need for universal access to services and social protection floors is an opening to build upon.

That the review summit did not achieve anything tangible has been a disappointment for most civil society participants at the New York Summit. But since civil society lives on hope and commitment, it is unlikely that its own energy will be diluted. Whether governments come on board or not, concerned citizens will continue to find ways to hold their leaders accountable to the last citizen, to promises made and those that need to be made. As the world heads for the deadline year of 2015, when the MDGs are to be achieved, the involvement of social activists and citizens would be crucial.

Floundering on Cambodian relations

Thu, Sep 30, 2010 The Nation/Asia News Network

The government seems to have run out of ideas for restoring ties with Cambodia, because once again the Foreign Ministry has rolled out old stuff re-packaged as a so-called "new plan". The first meeting between Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen after months of diplomatic rows produced nothing useful either. The latest plan announced a few days ago encourages local civilian and military authorities as well as central government agencies to come up with activities that will boost ties with Cambodia.

The activities such as cultural events, sports competitions, media and academic exchanges and economic assistance is really old wine in new bottle and does not address the actual reason for the breakdown of relations.

Frankly speaking, the poor relations between Thailand and Cambodia over the past years mostly was caused by the government and its political supporters.

Ordinary citizens living on either side of the border, local authorities and even the military have had no problems over the past few months. Relations at this end are normal, even though the two governments are at loggerheads.

The only two issues making relations with Cambodia sour are former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and the controversial Hindu temple of Preah Vihear.

Thaksin's relationship with the Cambodian government seems to be a problem for Abhisit's government, not the country. The government was angered when the former PM was made economic adviser to the Cambodian government and Hun Sen last year. Abhisit used all his means, including the downgrading of diplomatic ties, to force Thaksin to step down.

Thaksin eventually relented and resigned as adviser to Cambodia in August. Then Abhisit agreed to reinstate the Thai ambassador to Phnom Penh and Hun Sen reciprocated.

However, the problem with the Preah Vihear Temple is a bit more complicated because Abhisit's government has been addressing the issue in quite the wrong way. With pressure from nationalist groups, the government mixed up the World Heritage Site inscription of Preah Vihear with boundary disputes in the area adjacent to the temple.

The government has used resources and great effort in opposing the inscription of Preah Vihear on grounds that it feared losing sovereignty over the surrounding areas.

Although there is no real implication, Phnom Penh is clearly dissatisfied with Thailand's moves to delay the World Heritage Committee's consideration of the Preah Vihear management plan.

Abhisit wants the dispute over the 4.6 square kilometres surrounding the temple to be settled before accepting a management deal for the site.

One of most effective ways to settle the boundary dispute, at least for now, would be to allow the joint boundary committee (JBC) to do its job of demarcation. The committee is merely waiting for a Parliament approval of its minutes from three previous meetings.

The last meeting was in April 2009, but the minutes of this meeting were not proposed to the Parliament. There should be no problems in making the proposal, but the government does not dare put it forward for fear of pressure from nationalist groups.

The group under the umbrella of the People's Alliance for Democracy, which helped install this government, demanded that the authorities scrap the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in 2000 on the boundary demarcation with Cambodia.

The MoU, a basic legal instrument for the JBC, signed when Democrat Chuan Leekpai was in power, recognised the French-made map that showed the Hindu temple as situated on Cambodian territory.

What the government will possibly do now is use delaying tactics to keep JBC's minutes from being read in Parliament. It could hold a series of public hearings on the document after sitting on it for a year and a half.

Obviously, this tactic will do nothing for the bilateral relations, when the government should really let the JBC to resume its job quickly.

A new plan is unnecessary.