Nation strives to boost output of key medical equipment

China will offer loans at lower interest rates to encourage medical equipment companies to resume and step up production, in its latest push to fight the novel coronavirus outbreak, the country's top industry regulator said on Monday.

The move came as China's production capacity of crucial medical goods, including protective suits and masks, has been restored to about 60 to 70 percent of normal levels.

Tian Yulong, chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said ensuring medical supplies in Hubei province, the center of the novel coronavirus outbreak, is the top priority, but demand from other regions is also taken into account. "We are shifting from a delicate balance of medical demand and supply to a stable balance between the two."

According to Tian, to encourage more companies to ramp up production, the government will establish a temporary mechanism and offer favorable policies, including loans, to makers of important medical equipment.

The production capacity of protective suits, N95 masks, goggles and other medical equipment in short supply has reached 60 to 70 percent of its level before the Spring Festival holiday, data from the ministry show.

"More importantly, Hubei is itself an important hub for the production of medical equipment in China, and its production capacity of protective clothing and goggles is recovering quickly, which has greatly relieved the shortage of medical supplies," Tian added.

The ministry has been working hard to ramp up production of medical supplies and promote international purchases of vital protective equipment as part of its drive to contain the virus.

As of Sunday, the ministry has coordinated domestic medical supply manufacturers to send 154,500 protective suits and 133,600 N95 masks to Hubei for medical protective purposes.

Meanwhile, the production capacity of detection reagents in China has also been restored to about 60 percent of the normal level, reaching 773,000 units per day. As more companies resume production, there will be no problem ensuring the supply, Tian added.

When it comes to masks, the most desired medical goods, the ministry said about 60 percent of mask manufacturers have restored production, with more than 10 million masks being made every day, and daily production of N95 masks has reached 600,000.

A spokesperson for Rizhao Sanqi Medical and Health Articles, a major mask manufacturer in China, said the company's four plants have been running at full capacity, and all the medical masks it produced have been sent to Wuhan.

Another mask maker, Chengdu Xinjin Shifeng Medical Apparatus &Instrument, said the company can now make 100,000 masks every day.