Vietnam could become world’s face mask factory amid Covid-19

Vietnam’s garment industry wassuffering an unprecedented crisis due to COVID-19, but the pandemic alsobrought significant opportunities for the country to become the world’s face mask factory, reported Vietnam News Agency.

Many garment producers hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic recently invested in producing face masks as a solution to cope with the difficult time and take the opportunities arising from the supply shortage.

Some received export orders worth millions of dollars, a positive sign for the garment industry, which was under huge pressure from the pandemic.

Recently, Garment 10 Corporation Joint Stock Company said that it received an export order for 400 million medical face masks worth US$52 million together with orders for 20 million cloth masks from a US partner and two million cloth masks and six million medical face masks from a German partner.

TNG Investment and Trading Joint Stock Company also shipped millions of anti-bacterial cloth masks to the European Union during the past month. TNG was also investing in producing medical face masks, which was expected to start production from May.

Anti-bacterial cloth masks helped TNG’s sales in the domestic market in the first quarter of this year increase by 10 percent against the same period last year.

TNG’s director Nguyen Van Thoi said that there were large opportunities to export face marks.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, 50 domestic producers that reported to the ministry alone had a total production capacity of eight million face masks per day.

Besides, some companies, such as Nam Dinh Silk Textile Joint Stock Company, were now capable of producing anti-bacterial cloth.

The ministry said that Vietnam’s face mask production capacity could be increased much further.

Tran Thanh Hai, Deputy Director of the ministry’s Import-Export Department, in an interview with Vietnam News Agency said that Vietnam was capable of becoming a big cloth face mask producer in the world.

Trade promotion must be enhanced to raise consumers’ awareness about cloth masks and encourage them to switch to cloth masks instead of medical masks, Hai said.

He, however, noted that firms needed to give careful consideration when investing in face mask production as a long-term or large-scale investment because demand for masks could drop when the pandemic was over.

Face mask producers must pay attention to meeting quality and safety requirements of the import markets and obtain certificates to expand exports, he added.

According to the Vietnam Trade Office in the EU, many face mask and medical protective clothing producers in Vietnam contacted the trade office for supports in finding partners for exports of these products.

Source: Bernama