PHNOM PENH, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- Some 141 garment and footwear factories in Cambodia shut down last year, as 149 new ones opened, according to a Labor Ministry report on Friday.
Labor Ministry spokesman Heng Sour said that based on the figures, the country's garment and footwear industry remained vibrant.
"The number of closed factories and the number of opened factories in 2016 are comparable, so I think that the situation of the garment and footwear sector is still robust and controllable," he told Xinhua.
The garment and footwear industry, which is the kingdom's biggest foreign currency earner, consists of around 1,000 factories employing 754,000 workers. Current minimum wage for the workers is 153 U.S. dollars per month.
The Ministry of Industry and Handicraft has estimated that the Southeast Asian country exported garment and footwear products worth 6.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2016, an increase of 4.5 percent year-on-year.
