Overseas shipments of textiles, garments, footwear and travel goods from Cambodia were worth US $11.76 billion over the opening eight months of 2026, up 7.2% over $10.97 billion booked across the equivalent window a year earlier.
Figures published by the Ministry of Commerce break the performance down by category. Clothing and textile consignments led the field at $8.78 billion between January and August, ahead by 7.3% year on year.
Footwear advanced 7.5% to $1.5 billion, while the travel goods segment — bags, cases and related lines, added 6.5% to reach $1.48 billion.
The industry continues to anchor the national economy and remains the country’s biggest generator of hard currency, contributing 48% of all export earnings, according to the ministry’s data.
Thong Mengdavid, who serves as Deputy Director of the China-ASEAN Studies Center at the Cambodia University of Technology and Science, credited the sustained run to the sector’s success in widening its customer base.
“He described the expansion as evidence that Cambodian manufacturing has held firm even as worldwide demand has cooled,” Xinhua reported.
In his assessment, producers need to speed up the greening of their plants in order to satisfy demanding international environmental, social and governance benchmarks, shift production towards higher-value articles, and cut friction from logistics by digitalising trade paperwork.
Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training records put the sector at upwards of 1,800 plants and affiliated units, employing roughly 1.1 million people, many of them women.
Image courtesy: Hyosung
