The European Union on Wednesday (Aug 12) began to reimpose customs duties on certain exports from Cambodia in response to what it said are concerns about the Southeast Asian country’s human rights record.
The European Commission, which supervises trade deals and relations on behalf of the 27 member nations of the world’s biggest trading bloc, said the duties would be put on clothes, footwear and travel goods.
The commission announced in February that it planned to withdraw key tariff preferences amounting to about one-fifth of the 1 billion euros (U$1.2 billion) worth of Cambodian exports that go to the EU each year due to “serious and systematic concerns related to human rights.”
