How Sun Chantol Corporation Works

“But now, as a government official, as a minister, I work to improve the standard of living for my shareholders that I see every day on the street: men, women, children. Cambodians are now my shareholders. I work for them.”

Sun Chantol, minister of commerce and vice-chairman of the Council for the Development of Cambodia, 31 Jan 2014

“No official in any country around the world does not want to pay the people more. Everyone looks after the interest of their people.”

Sun Chantol, minister of commerce and vice-chairman of the Council for the Development of Cambodia, 24 Jan 2014

“We want to pay them. If we could pay them $200, we’d pay them $200 a month. If they ask for $160 and we can do it for $200, we’ll pay $200. But the question is, if we do that, is Cambodia competitive?”

Sun Chantol, minister of commerce and vice-chairman of the Council for the Development of Cambodia, 24 Jan 2014

It is rather disappointing that Sun Chantol, with so much private business experience, can manage only to manifest a fundamental inadequacy in his plan for the garment industry. His competitiveness policy for the garment industry is limited to racing the workers wage to the bottom. One must be forgiven for expecting a Wharton & Harvard graduate to be more creative. Marketing 101 does tell there are so many ways, besides lowering wages, to compete to keep any industry flourishing. Human Resources 101 explains how happy staff can help improve productivity. And Business 101 shows how productivity, not lowering wages, can generate and keeps profit long lasting.

How ironic. While Sun Chantol regards Cambodians are his shareholders, his policy priority is to keep starving wages for his 600,000 shareholders, as if those garment workers and their families are not his shareholders. He expects the weak and vulnerable to pay for his lack of flair for creativity on competition. What make him claim that factory owners will pack up and leave if the wage is doubled up to $160 per month? He ought to be able to come up with industry financials (preferably audited) and better explanations why the industry cannot afford the proposed wage adjustment from such a low base. Of course, it is easier to just repeat a line of arbitrary dismissal that it cannot be done, peddled by the factory owners who has to protect interest of their own shareholders.

Sun Chantol may have just come out of Bora Bora Cave to generalise that all government officials in any country around the world want to pay the people more, and that everyone looks after the interest of their people. He could be right if he cared to define who these “people” are. Nevertheless, many government officials in Cambodia, including Sun Chantol himself, do not want to pay their people, or their shareholders, any more than what they have to. And incidentally, not everyone looks after the interest of their people, beyond their personal interest groups. Could Sun Chantol Corporation be so naive?

Ung Bun Ang

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