Masks ‘block’ export routes

Mr. Truong Thanh Hoai – Director of the Department of Industry (Ministry of Industry and Trade) mentioned many bottlenecks in Vietnam’s export of masks (medical and fabric) at a meeting on the afternoon of April 24.

Workers of a business in Ho Chi Minh City sew antibacterial masks for export to Middle Eastern countries.

According to him, the production capacity of medical masks of businesses is currently about tens of millions of masks a day, but there are problems due to the health sector’s stockpiling activities for epidemic prevention, causing congestion in all export activities.

`The government has come to a conclusion about licensing the export of medical masks. Currently, with large production capacity, it is only because the health sector has not purchased enough 14 million masks that it is causing general difficulties,` Mr. Hoai said.

Representatives of this agency also asked the health sector to speed up the purchase of enough missing medical masks (14 million pieces) through a bidding mechanism, then allow businesses to export unlimited products.

A similar situation occurs with fabric masks when the supply capacity of textile enterprises reaches 11 million pieces a day, but low consumption causes inventory to increase, about 20 million pieces.

Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh admitted that it would be a waste if the production capacity of a large enterprise had output congestion for objective reasons.

In a recent document sent to the Government, the Ministry of Finance also proposed that from May 16, medical masks can be exported without a license when they have proactively sourced them domestically.

Giving opinions to the Government, the Ministry of Health proposed that there still need to be conditions for businesses exporting masks.

Also at the meeting, Mr. Truong Thanh Hoai worried that the domestic manufacturing industry would face great difficulties in the output market from April.

For example, orders of textiles, garments, leather and footwear from major export markets such as the US, EU… have decreased by 70% due to continuous cancellations and stoppages after the outbreak of the disease.

Similar to the electronics industry, domestic automobile manufacturing and assembly when revenue declines, sales agents and manufacturing plants temporarily close and production is moderate.

`Almost most of industrial production is in decline. The situation will not improve until the end of April,` Mr. Hoai said, predicting that the industrial production index in April will decrease sharply compared to the same period in 2019.

It’s difficult, but according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, for nearly a month, almost no industrial enterprises, especially small and medium-sized ones, have been able to access credit support packages from banks.