Cambodia’s garment manufacturing sector recorded $10 billion in outbound shipments during the first ten months of 2026, maintaining its position as the country's primary foreign-exchange earner. Broader shipments encompassing garments, footwear, and travel goods reached $14.4 billion over the same January–October window, marking a 7.4 per cent Y-o-Y expansion. While knitted apparel continues to anchor total volume, non-knitted woven garments posted the fastest percentage gains, supported by international sourcing diversification into Southeast Asia.
Upstream bottlenecks and margin pressures
Rising order volumes have triggered a sharp uptick in cotton and cotton yarn imports, underscoring Cambodia’s heavy reliance on foreign textile mills - primarily in China and Vietnam - for raw materials. Order books remain healthy across our 1,800 registered factories, yet domestic value retention stays capped until local spinning, weaving, and dyeing capacity scales, noted Ken Loo, Secretary General, Textile, Apparel, Footwear & Travel Goods Association in Cambodia (TAFTAC). Furthermore, rising regional compliance costs and logistics lead times continue to test factory operating margins.
Cambodia’s textile and apparel industry comprises over 1,800 export-oriented factories employing approximately 1.1 million workers across Phnom Penh and surrounding provinces. Specializing in cut-and-sew knitted and woven garments for US, European, and Japanese markets, the sector is targeting upstream fabric mill investments to strengthen trade resilience, building on industrial growth initiated in the mid-1990s.
