Face mask production is in full swing,daily output for 54.77 Million

On February 24， Mr.Congliang， Secretary General of National Development and Reform Commission （NDRC） was invited to meet the news media at the press conference held by the State Council Information Office to introduce the updates for face mask supplies， with the issues relating to employment， finance， raw materials etc.in the companies that NDRC helped addressing.

Right now， there are 30 provinces， except Tibet， with new production lines for face masks which went into operation one after another， and more lines are to be approved in the days to come. As of February 22， the daily output of face masks rose up to 54.77 million pieces， 2.8 times higher than that on the very first day of this month， amounting to 570 million pieces over the past 20 days.

The production growth is nothing short of a mirror to show the government efficiency， complete supply chain， logistics connectivity， first-aid responding system， and determination strengthened by brains and brawns to win the battle.

The Secretary General of NDRC told the reporters at the news briefing that the whole mission was carried out in two phases， and N95 face mask production was a primary consideration for the safety of the frontline doctors and nurses at the beginning. Great efforts were made to expand the production lines of this medical necessity with 919，000 pieces on daily count on February 22， 8.6 times as much as that on the start of this month. Over the past three weeks， 3.3 million N95 masks have been allocated through national instruction scheduling system from the provinces where the production of this special item is available， largely to the disease-ridden Wuhan city of Hubei province， also to Beijing and the other provinces with no N95 manufacturing. Actually， 2.68 million pieces went to Wuhan city where the daily supply of N95 can be shipped to at this moment， enough to meet the needs of over 60，000 medical workers fighting on the front.

As the factories start to resume operations here and there， workforces come back to work， this boosts the already tight supply up to insatiable shortage with an explosive demand growth. NDRC is shifting its focus on medical masks to civilian-purposed ordinary mouth muffles， accordingly in this new phase.

The resumption capacity of masks reached 100%， and the industrial resumption rate in major economic provinces exceeded 50%.

At present， positive progress has been made in the countrys resumption of production. The resumption rate of industrial enterprises above designated size in some major economic provinces（municipalities） such as Guangdong， Jiangsu， and Shanghai exceeds 50%； the resumption of production involving materials related to epidemic prevention and control is more effective， and the utilization rate of mask capacity on February 17 reached 110%.