PHNOM PENH, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen held a get-together ceremony with about 4,270 garment and shoe factory workers here on Sunday, marking his start of weekly campaign to meet workers in the industry across the kingdom.
The prime minister announced the initiative earlier this month with the aim of increasing friendliness and better understanding the demands and concerns of workers.
Posting to his official Facebook page after the get-together ceremony at Koh Pich island in Phnom Penh, Hun Sen said he decided to let the workers use public transport services free for two years to help them reduce their daily expenses.
"(Garment and footwear) workers will be allowed to ride public buses free-of-charge for two years, starting from Aug. 20, 2017 to Aug. 20, 2019," he said. "They just show their labor cards when they ride the buses."
According to the prime minister, from January 2018, the employers would be 100 percent responsible for health insurance services for the workers, so they could save at least 2 to 3 U.S. dollars a month.
Also, he said the workers would receive their pension from 2019 onwards.
Garment and footwear industry is Cambodia's largest foreign exchange earner. According to government figures, the Southeast Asian country earned 7.3 billion U.S. dollars from garment and footwear product exports in 2016, accounting for 74 percent of the country's total export.
The industry consists of some 1,100 factories, employing more than 740,000 workers, mostly females, and the monthly minimum wage for a worker is 153 dollars in 2017, up 9.2 percent from 140 dollars in 2016.
Hun Sen said that garment and shoe factory workers could see their monthly minimum wages grow by at least 9.8 percent to 168 dollars for 2018 from the current 153 dollars.
