Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The Ministry of Industry and Trade has directedVietnamese commercial affair offices abroad to connect with businesses tosearch for raw materials for face masks production in Vietnam.

Deputy Minister Dang Hoang An made the statement at a meeting with the nationalsteering committee for the novel coronavirus prevention and control on February4.

The ministry had worked with the Ministry of Health to implement solutions torespond to the deadly outbreak, An said.

"Prices for raw materials to produce face masks are increasing, but westill have to buy them to fight against the epidemic,” he said.

The deputy minister also instructed textile and garment enterprises to focus onmanufacturing masks from antibacterial fabrics, which are washable and reusablebut still meet requirements of epidemic prevention.

“In emergency cases, if required, these companies should stop exporting garmentproducts to focus on producing antibacterial masks," he noted.

“Production capacity may reach 30 million products per day in this case,” headded.

The deputy minister also said the Ministry of Industry and Trade hadimplemented many solutions to prevent the hoarding of goods, increasing pricesand smuggling of masks.

Statistics from Lang Son Department of Customs showed its border gate customsoffice cleared procedures for exporting 3.9 million Vietnamese medical facemasks worth 92,137 USD to China from January 1 to February 3 this year.

Face masks produced by Dong Xuan Knitting Company (Doximex) began being sold inHanoi at 5pm on February 4. The products are sold at Vinatex showrooms at 25 BaTrieu and 57B Phan Chu Trinh streets 70,000 VND for 10 masks.

It is expected the company will supply the market from 300,000 to 400,000products per day in the near future.

Additionally, TNG Investment and Trading JSC in Thai Nguyen province has sent asample of a nanometer fabric mask to the National Institute of Medical Devicesand Construction to apply for a licence.

If approved this week, TNG will provide one million masks for theprovince.

The current domestic daily production scale was about three million maskson average, said Deputy Minister of Health Truong Quoc Cuong.

The deputy minister worked with companies in Hanoi on producing andsupplying equipment for the prevention of coronavirus on February 3.

To help cope with the demand for epidemic prevention equipment, theMinistry of Health and related units had organised a working visit to urgedomestic producers to accelerate production and supply of medical masks,protective clothing and medical materials, said the deputy minister.

Tanaphar Joint Stock Company said the production scale of the enterprisereached 70,000 masks per day.

The company’s workers worked at full capacity for from January 30 toaccelerate production to meet the needs of the people.

Le Xuan Hien, director of Dai Uy Joint Stock Company, said the most importantpart of the masks was the filter.

The company still had about 600 kilogrammes of filter material, if themachines operated for three shifts per day, the production scale would benearly 100,000 masks daily, he said.

However, if this progress was continued, the company would run out of rawmaterials for production in 10 days, he noted.

“The company still sells three-layer masks at 30,000 VND per box including 50masks as before without raising prices,” said the director.

Both production companies said that the biggest difficulty now was findingsources of raw materials to ensure production.

Therefore, the companies expected to be supported to find raw materials toincrease production capacity at full capacity. They also proposed toadjust price following the increasing price of input materials./.