China manufacturers seek refuge and savings in Cambodia
Increasing labour costs in China as the population has become more prosperous in the last 20 years have prompted many China-based manufacturers to seek lower costs abroad.
The zero-covid lockdown policy has also accelerated this exodus of manufacturing from China as the pandemic lingers on.
One of the main destinations for migrating Chinese leather product manufacturers in recent years has been Cambodia.
Chinese leather entrepreneurs are investing outside China in search of lower labour costs and so improve their competitiveness in the outsourcing market.
Chinese owned leathergoods and footwear manufacturers are already well-established in Cambodia. The leather sector boasts 186 companies active in the Cambodian province of Kampong Speu, which employ more than 148,000 people, and most of these companies are Chinese-owned.
