The end of the MFA and apparel exports: has good CSR allowed Cambodia to hold steady against China in a quota free environment?
✍ Scribed by Stephen Frost; Mary Ho
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2006
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 295 KB
- Volume
- 13
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1535-3958
- DOI
- 10.1002/csr.111
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
In the lead up the end of the Multi‐Fiber Arrangement (MFA), commentators routinely argued that Chinese apparel exports would surge in a quota‐free environment. It was also expected that Southeast Asian apparel exporting nations would suffer declines, leading to job and economic losses. Of particular concern was Cambodia, a country that relies almost exclusively on apparel exports for foreign earnings. By mid‐2005, as trade data started to filter in, the doomsday scenario for countries like Cambodia seemed less clear cut. Although China's apparel exports had indeed soured, a surprising outcome was that exports to the US from Cambodia (and several other neighbours such as Indonesia and Vietnam) had also increased. This article focuses specifically on Cambodia (which of all the Southeast Asian countries surveyed has shown the greatest growth in apparel exports) and examines some of the CSR initiatives that help explain why gloomy prognostications have not yet become true. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.