Gyeonggi-do to Produce 790,000 General Masks Daily

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Gyeonggi Province has completed preparations to produce up to 790,000 additional general masks per day to resolve the mask shortage caused by the spread of COVID-19.

On the 13th, Gyeonggi Province announced that it has prepared a plan to expand additional production of general masks and submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

The proposal focuses on improving the system to allow health mask manufacturers producing COVID-19 infection prevention products to use idle facilities to produce substitute general masks (commercial masks).

Under the current system, health mask manufacturers are not allowed to produce general masks.

Currently, 6.9 million health masks are produced daily in the province, but some facilities are unable to operate due to a shortage of MB filter raw materials.

Based on this, the province’s plan is to operate some idle facilities that are currently not in use to produce additional general masks and expand distribution.

The province’s idea is to resolve the mask shortage by allowing health mask manufacturers, who have received approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for health masks such as 'KF80' and 'KF94', to produce general masks without filter functions.

A provincial official explained, "Only the government’s system improvement procedures remain."

Earlier, the province conducted an emergency survey targeting health mask manufacturers in the province, which revealed that a total of 14 idle facilities are operable. If the system is improved, it will be possible to produce 580,000 general masks per day.

Additionally, the province decided to resolve the shortage by establishing a collaborative production system among four types of businesses in the northern Gyeonggi region?yarn (thread), knitting (fabric), dyeing, and sewing companies?to produce general masks with antibacterial functions.

Currently, 60 companies are participating in the collaborative production system, which started production on the 13th, and from the 30th, up to 210,000 antibacterial general masks will be produced daily.

Earlier this month, the province discussed this production method with participating companies, completed prototype production and performance testing, and is now ready for immediate production and sales.

The production cost is around 1,000 KRW.

The province expects that with this system improvement and collaborative production, a total daily supply of 790,000 masks will be possible.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.