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Myanmar garment firms to conduct survey on minimum wage

23
Jan '20

Pic: Shutterstock

Myanmar’s garment manufacturers will conduct a survey to find out if workers are justified in asking for a steep hike in the daily minimum wage, according to the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association. A survey on the rising costs of garment factories was distributed among businesses during an association meeting in capital Yangon recently.

Association chairman U Myint Soe said the survey will be conducted in February and submitted to the National Minimum Wage Committee at its next meeting, according to reports in Myanmarese newspapers.

The survey will gather general information about the factories and businesses, their expenses, labour force, export market, employee salaries and benefits.

Under the law, the government must review the minimum wage every two years. A meeting of representatives of government, workers and employers will meet in May to begin discussing the minimum wage.

The Yangon Region government has begun collecting data on the cost of living in the country’s economic capital to determine its own minimum wage proposal.

U Khin Maung Thwin, secretary of the Minimum Wage Committee and regional officer of Department of Labour, said the data collection started last week and will continue for 18 days.

The association said there are over 533 garment factories in the country, of which 90 per cent are exporters.

Myanmar’s garment exports totalled $4.8 billion in 2018-2019, the ministry of commerce said.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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