Update on Sok Lin Loeurng

Update on Sok Lin Loeurng
Entrepreneur: Sok Lin Loeurng
Location: Kean Svay district, Cambodia
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=11838

This entrepreneur is funded by a Kiva loan administered by Maxima Mikroheranhvatho Co., Ltd. here in Cambodia. Sok lives just off National Road 1 south of Phnom Penh. This is the second loan she has taken out with Maxima. Her loan is being paid off on schedule.

Sok and her family, derive their primary income from weaving. They used the funds from this loan to buy thread for weaving and to buy a second loom. Unlike the weavers I’ve visited prior to Sok, she uses a power loom – a fact made apparent by the clatter that filled the village as we approached her house through little lanes barely wide enough for our motorbike. For more than fifty years, the weavers of Kean Svay have weaved the all-purpose, checked cloths called “kro mah.” Cambodians use the kro mah for everything from a scarf to a towel to a head wrap to a sarong-like skirt to a satchel for carrying things to any number of other utilitarian purposes.

Kro mah don’t demand the quality of fabric that the silk weavers we’ve visited before. Success is more a function of volume than quantity. Some years ago, the Kean Svay weavers switched over to semi-automatic power looms - hence the clatter in teh village. These looms not only weave much more quickly than a hand loom but one person can operate two at one time. Sok’s been weaving for seven years. She learned from her mother. Her business helps support eight people – herself, her husband (he is a policeman), their three children as well as her mother and father. She also employs one person to work with her.

Sok buys raw cotton and nylon thread from one of the large markets in Phnom Penh. She uses a large separator and spinning wheel apparatus (see photo) to wind the thread onto a large spindle that can be used for continuous weaving. All the equipment I saw looked hand-made and Sok said breakdowns were the biggest ongoing management issue with her business. People who can repair the wooden looms must have some special combination of rustic engineering skill and voodoo power over the forces of entropy and wear. These machines are the definition of “rickety”. . . but they work.

Sok also has problems with sporadic electricity supply and with employee turnover. Many workers come from rural areas. Often, when they’ve saved some money, they leave without notice to return to their home provinces. Replacement employees can take time to find and train.

Sok tells me that she sells a finished kro-mah for 1,550 Riel (about US $0.38) and she can make about 500 pieces per week. Like many business operators we’ve interviewed, Sok’s costs have been rising. She says that in only the past year the cost of cotton thread has increased from $200 to $315 per 100 kilograms – the standard lot size. A hundred kilos makes about 1,250 pieces. Since the year 2000, electricity has also increased in cost from $0.13 to $0.18 per kilowatt hour. As mentioned above, Sok also just bought a second loom. She paid $300.

She currently sells all her production to middlemen. When she saves enough money, she wants to buy a stall at the closest large market so she can sell directly herself. Stalls don’t come cheaply. The current rate is about $8,500. Meanwhile, she wants to continue growing her business and get her children as far in school as she can.

Posted by Darin Greyerbiehl from Kean Svay district, Cambodia
Nov 12, 2007