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

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

The garment industry was suffering an unprecedented crisis due to COVID-19, but the pandemic also brought significant opportunities for Vietnam to become the world’s face mask factory.

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 52 million USD, 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.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, 50 domestic producers which 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.

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.

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.

Source: Ministry of Industry and Trade