22/05/2026
Cambodia’s exports grew by 17% in 2025, led by garments, footwear, and agricultural products, proving resilient in the face of growing trade policy uncertainty. Building on that performance will be vital to its goal of achieving high-income country status by 2050. To protect and diversify access to export markets, Cambodia and other open economies in the region can draw lessons from Cambodia’s recent experience with solar panels.
Starting from virtually zero in 2017, Cambodia had become a major exporter of solar panels by 2023, with shipments worth more than $2 billion that year.
The surge was driven by foreign companies that invested in factories in Cambodia due to low labor costs and a temporary suspension of US anti-dumping and countervailing duties on solar imports from several Southeast Asian economies. The suspension allowed panels assembled in the subregion to enter the US market with much lower tariffs than they would be subject to if shipped from other economies.
That advantage ended in August 2023. Under the rules of origin of most trade agreements, simple assembly is not sufficient to change a product’s economic origin, and the US Department of Commerce ruled that the work done in Southeast Asian economies was largely assembly. Panels shipped from Cambodian factories began being treated as made in the countries where solar cells, wafers, and other key components of the panels were produced, rather than made in Cambodia, where they were assembled. Steep duties were therefore imposed on the panels.
Cambodia’s solar exports collapsed soon after, falling to under $10 million in 2025. What are the takeaways from this episode?
Read the full article: https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501902583/sunrise-sunset-lessons-from-cambodias-solar-panel-industry/