Taiwan expects to increase daily mask production from 4 million to 10 million by early next month to meet high demand amid preventative efforts against COVID-19, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Friday.
A team of machine-tool builders, working with three research institutes, have constructed 60 new production lines, each capable of manufacturing 100,000 surgical masks per day, the ministry said in a Facebook post.
Normally, this many production lines would take four to six months to build, but the team completed the work in one month, the ministry said.
This was “not a miracle, but the result of cooperation among Taiwanese,” the ministry said, adding that the “national team” completed “an almost impossible task.”
The team was put together by Taiwan Machine Tool & Accessory Builders’ Association (TMBA, 台灣工具機暨零組件公會) chairman Habor Hsu (許文憲), with help from the Industrial Technology Research Institute (工業技術研究院), the Metal Industries Research and Development Centre (金屬工業研究發展中心), the Precision Machinery Research and Development Center (精密機械研究發展中心) and about 30 companies in the machinery sector.
TMBA said that it hopes that when output reaches 10 million masks per day, people would no longer have to stand in long lines to buy two masks per week under the government’s rationing system.
As part of the government’s efforts to contain and deal with COVID-19, it has been requisitioning and distributing all domestically produced masks to healthcare workers and professionals and to more than 6,000 pharmacies and drugstores for regulated sale to consumers.
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