According to Myint Soe, chairman of the association, the export volume in 2015 was $1.46 billion. The garment industry of Myanmar employs more than 250,000 people and accounts for 10 per cent of the country’s export revenues.

The local garment industry receives a massive inflow of foreign investments, thanks mainly cheap labour and the European Union’s generalised system of preferences (GSP). Myanmar’s minimum wage is now the lowest in Asean, at 3,600 kyats or about US$3.

Foreign investment in the industry amounted to 26.5 per cent of the total investment flowing to the country in 2013. The ratio increased to 27.4 per cent in 2014 and 29 per cent in 2015.

The garment sector is included in Myanmar’s National Export Strategy (2015-2019), the plan to boost the country’s export income to replenish huge trade deficits.

More Western apparel retailers, led by H&M and Gap, have also sourced products in the country after the Myanmar government agreed to implement the Initiative on Labour Law Reform and Institutional Capacity Building to improve labour rights and practices in Myanmar in mid-2015.