Major trade groups yesterday called on the government to allow companies to buy COVID-19 vaccines on their own to help maintain global supply chains amid a local outbreak.
The Chinese National Federation of Industries (全國工業總會), the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturing Association (台灣區電機電子公會), the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce (工商協進會), the General Chamber of Commerce (全國商業總會), the National Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (全國中小企業總會) and others made the plea in a joint statement.
Taiwan is home to the world’s largest suppliers of critical electronic components used in smartphones, laptops, TVs and other consumer electronics, and global technology giants have expressed concern about potential supply chain disruptions, the statement said.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Vaccines are the ultimate solution to the health crisis, but only 1.6 percent of Taiwanese are vaccinated, far lower than necessary to emerge from the pandemic, lending support to the need for diversified purchasing channels to help Taiwan stay competitive, it said.
“The global supply chains could take a hit if Taiwan cannot control the virus outbreak in an effective fashion,” the statement said, after Terry Gou (郭台銘), founder of iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), said last week that he was negotiating the purchase of 5 million doses of a vaccine made by Germany’s BioNTech SE.
Other major tech firms also voiced interest in acquiring vaccines to protect the health of their employees if the government removed regulatory obstacles to do so.
The trade groups said they agreed with the government’s insistence that all vaccines be safe and certified by global health authorities, but they pressed for flexibility on the requirement that all vaccine purchase deals must be carried out by the central government and original drugmakers, adding that the regulations have prevented them from buying vaccines.
The trade groups also pushed for companies to have the freedom to vaccinate their employees after frontline workers and other at-risk people receive shots.
The government could provide training and issue provisional licenses to medical and nursing school students so they could help firms with COVID-19 testing and vaccinations, the statement said, as the government has said there is a shortage of professional staff.
Deregulation of vaccine imports would help take pressure off the government, which has had difficulty acquiring sufficient doses of vaccines, it added.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday said it would act as a coordinator for COVID-19 vaccine requests from local businesses and has tasked the Industrial Development Bureau to take applications from companies wishing to purchase the vaccines.
“The ministry welcomes and is thankful for private companies seeking to obtain more vaccines,” the ministry said in a statement. “To lessen the pressure on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the ministry would act as a bridge between businesses and the CDC for further approval.”
Additional reporting by Angelica Oung
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