By Don Weinland
Thursday, 03 May 2012
Phnom Penh Post 
Photo by: Hong Menea/Phnom Penh Post
A sales clerk holds up a Samsung Galaxy tablet at a store on Sihanouk
Boulevard in Phnom Penh yesterday. A US technology firm is in talks to
manufacture more affordable tablets for the domestic market.
Mobile payment company Wing was in talks on partnering with a US
technology firm that plans to assemble Android tablets in Cambodia, in
what could be another step away from the country’s staple manufactured
good – garments.
Although a final partnership agreement had yet
to made with Wing, prospects for Cambodia’s first electronics assembly
factory “looked very positive”, Wing chief executive Ian Watson said
yesterday.
“We’re looking for additional ways to compliment our
mobile money system,” he said, adding that Wing would not market the
devices.
Like the Ford cars assembled in a Sihanoukville plant
that launched in late March, the Android tablets would be marketed to
Cambodians.
The devices would be equipped with
Cambodian-language applications and priced low enough to reach Cambodian
consumers, Watson said.
The potential move raises questions on
Cambodia’s ability to supply the labour needed to make – as well as
adequate demand to purchase – the devices.
Average yearly income in Cambodia was US$907 last year, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
“I’m
surprised we’re not seeing more and more of this right now …
Domestically, there’s a supply of labour for more assembly and light
industry here,” Gordon Peters, manager at Emerging Markets Consulting in Cambodia, said yesterday.
Human
resources management was still a challenge in Cambodia, but better pay
and health benefits should attract the needed work force, he added.
Rami Sharaf, country manager for RMA Cambodia, which owns the Ford assembly plant, said workers have performed well at the plant after receiving the proper training.
Asian Development Bank in an annual report on Cambodia and Asia issued last month said skill shortages were hindering the country’s development.
The
report recommended a boost in education and industry-relevant training
programs that would help people enter job markets without complete
educations.
The ADB’s 2011 report pointed to diversification away
from garment maufacturing as a top priority for the country’s industry
sector.
While the Cambodian market was RMA’s short-term target,
assemblers in Cambodia would no doubt look to the regional market for
goods produced domestically, Sharaf said.
“When you reach 2015,
we will have an ASEAN economic community,” he said, referring to the
regional assimilation of customs regulations and banking that is hoped
to boost regional trade.
“Anyone who is doing this here must consider the umbrella of ASEAN as a market.”
The
“Everything But Arms” agreement with Europe would also see
Cambodian-made products exported tariff-free to Europe, Peters said.
Research
conducted by EMC indicated that the market for tablet devices is
increasing in Cambodia, Peters said. A growing middle- and upper-class
were already buying similar products, he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Don Weinland at don.weinland@phnompenhpost.com
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