There are over 100 million masks produced in Japan, why are they still hard to buy
Since the outbreak of the new coronavirus pneumonia, masks have been a topic of concern to everyone. “It is difficult to find a mask” has become a problem for many people. On March 2, the National Development and Reform Commission reported that “the daily production capacity of masks has exceeded 100 million pieces”, which initially eased consumers’ “mask anxiety”. However, in recent times, as the pace of resumption of work and production across the country has accelerated, the demand for public masks has gradually increased, and it is still not easy for ordinary consumers to buy masks. When will this situation be completely resolved? With many questions, Economic Daily-China Economic Net reporters investigated the domestic mask production and supply situation.
Production capacity of over 100 million is hard-won
This is an accelerating growth curve – in early February, my country’s daily output of masks exceeded 10 million, and in early March, the daily output exceeded 100 million. The daily output of masks increased from 10 million to over 100 million in just one month.
Data shows that in early February, my country’s mask production capacity was approximately 20 million pieces per day, with a daily output of more than 10 million pieces; on February 22, the daily output of masks reached 54.77 million pieces; on February 25, the national daily mask production capacity reached 7,285 pieces 10,000 pieces, with daily output reaching 76.19 million pieces. On February 29, the national daily mask production capacity reached 110 million pieces, including ordinary masks, medical masks, and medical N95 masks, and the daily output reached 116 million pieces.
It is not easy to get out of such a “growth line” in such a short period of time.
Since the outbreak, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments have made every effort to promote the resumption of work and reach production capacity, giving priority to ensuring the employment, funding, logistics, supply of key raw and auxiliary materials and other needs of mask companies, and guiding companies to effectively prevent their own epidemics and ensure safe production and products. Under the premise of quality, we will produce at full capacity and at full capacity. A special project to expand the capacity of medical masks has been launched, and three batches of enterprises have been organized to increase production, expand production, and convert production through technological transformation to increase the supply of masks. In order to relieve enterprises from worries about production, the government will buy masks and other protective materials that are produced as a result of enterprises increasing production efforts and expanding production capacity. At the same time, local governments are encouraged to introduce relevant support policies.
Every region is also racing against time and doing everything possible to increase mask production capacity. For example, in Shandong, a major province in mask production, the Shandong Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology has established a unified provincial dispatching mechanism during special periods, adopting a “one-on-one” approach to monitor production, a “one-on-one” approach to increase production capacity, and a “one-on-one” approach to ensure operation, to help Enterprises in production will increase production capacity, and enterprises on holiday will speed up the resumption of production. Shenzhen City is accelerating the promotion of “exports to domestic sales.” Masks originally intended for export that meet the import country’s medical standards must be registered and filed with the market supervision department. After filing, a Chinese label will be added and they will be sold domestically immediately. As of March 2, there are 339 mask companies of various types in Guangdong Province, and the production of masks has soared from less than 100,000 masks per day to more than 20 million masks per day.
Faced with huge demand, many companies such as Sinopec, China National Petroleum Corporation, Foxconn, and BYD have also begun “cross-border” production. Taking advantage of its own raw material production advantages, Sinopec will invest approximately 200 million yuan to build 10 meltblown cloth production lines. The raw materials produced can be used to produce 3.6 million N95 masks or 18 million medical flat masks. On March 9, Gree Electric announced that masks would go on sale. According to the purchase rules, anti-epidemic materials are given priority to support the front line of the fight against the epidemic. Masks are drawn by lottery after reservation. Users who have made a successful reservation can choose a box from KN95 protection level disposable masks and disposable medical masks. The reporter saw that within the one-hour reservation period on March 10, the number of reservations exceeded 470,000.
Raw material bottleneck has been slightly eased
Although the supply of masks has accelerated, there is still a huge gap in masks. According to the analysis of Huachuang Securities, China’s secondary and tertiary industriesemployment population is about 530 million. If each person has one mask per day, 530 million masks will be needed one day after all work resumes; extreme Under this circumstance, only the secondary industry + medical staff + transportation industry will resume work and production, and 238 million masks will be needed every day.
WansiliSilkDigital Printing Co., Ltd. is one of the first key manufacturers of civilian masks in Zhejiang Province. It took 6 days to complete the production line renovation, worker training, and mask proofing. Recently, the daily production capacity of Wansili masks has exceeded 1 million for the first time. “The biggest problem now is melt-blown cloth, with a gap of 1 ton per day.” The relevant person in charge of Wanshili Silk told the Economic Daily-China Economic Net reporter that 1 ton of melt-blown cloth can produce about 1 million masks. Now the company’s melt-blown cloth It can only be done for a few days.
Meltblown cloth is one of the core raw materials in the upstream of the mask production chain. It is called the “heart” of medical surgical masks and N95 masks. The sudden epidemic has caused meltblown cloth, which is usually less popular, to suddenly become a hot search list. Especially as the production of medical masks continues to rise, meltblown cloth has even become a rare commodity.
Through the “Key Medical Prevention and Control Materials Production Process Docking Area” applet on the State Council client, the reporter contacted several mask companies that announced that “melt-blown cloth is urgently needed”. According to reports, the usual price of melt-blown cloth is about 20,000 yuan/ton. Since February, the price of melt-blown cloth has been rising sharply.The reason why it is difficult to see the mask.
But overall, as the epidemic eases and production capacity expands, the “hard-to-find” problem is expected to gradually ease.
Shengguang Group is a large-scale private enterprise in Henan Province that focuses on medical device processing and manufacturing and pharmaceutical trade and circulation. The relevant person in charge of Shengguang Group told reporters that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has helped the company coordinate more than 50 mask production equipment, which are expected to be in place in mid-March. By then, the daily mask production capacity will increase from more than 300,000 to about 6 million.
The person in charge said that the company originally had five or six mechanical maintenance engineers, and the local government helped coordinate dozens of technical experts from local state-owned enterprises to help debug the equipment. “Now new equipment is arriving one after another, and the output of old equipment is steadily increasing. If everything goes well, after sterilization and analysis, the masks will soon be put into use for epidemic prevention and control.”
Cong Liang, Secretary-General of the National Development and Reform Commission, previously introduced that ensuring the supply of masks can be divided into two stages. The first stage is mainly to respond to the epidemic and protect front-line medical staff, with a focus on expanding the production of medical N95 masks. In the recent stage, as the demand for masks has increased explosively due to the resumption of work and production, the focus of ensuring supply has gradually shifted to ordinary medical and ordinary masks. Actively coordinating key raw material and equipment companies such as melt-blown non-woven fabrics, mask machines and parts to speed up production, meet the urgent needs of mask companies to expand production capacity, and improve the operating efficiency of the entire industry chain. This is one of the focuses of efforts to ensure supply in the recent stage.
At present, 30 provinces except Tibet have successively launched new mask production lines, and new production lines are constantly being put into production. Cong Liang said that he believed that with the joint efforts of all parties, my country’s mask production capacity and output will continue to maintain a rapid growth and better meet the needs of epidemic prevention and control and resumption of work and production.
It is necessary not only to increase production and capacity, but also to use it rationally. Ou Xiaoli, director of the Social Affairs Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that with the orderly resumption of work and production and the gradual restoration of living order, the demand for ordinary masks other than N95 will also grow rapidly, and the contradiction between supply and demand will increase. It is unrealistic to immediately reach a situation where “as many masks as needed” can be achieved. Therefore, it is also necessary to use masks scientifically and on demand to reduce unnecessary waste. (Economic Daily-China Economic Net reporters Xiong Li and Gu Yang)
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