Suppliers working hard to stay ahead of outbreak

More than one fifth of the over 500 workers of Crown Name Disposable Hygiene Products, another subsidiary of Zonsen Group, had returned to work when China Daily visited its factory with the team dispatched by the central government on Tuesday.

In addition to a lack of manpower, the company is facing other challenges in realizing its full capacity of 10,000 protective gowns daily.

It takes four hours to reach the nearest disinfection facility still in operation, which greatly hinders Crown Name's efforts to enhance production efficiency to help meet demand from local hospitals.

"It's a must to disinfect medical protective clothing. No matter how many we produce, they cannot be delivered if the products are not disinfected," said Li Sen, chairman of Zonsen Group.

Meanwhile, the company finds it difficult to raise the money needed to produce the number of protective gowns required daily by the local government.

Li, however, was greatly relieved when members of the team sent by the central government visited him.

After hearing that Li's company has planned to buy assets from Beijing and Shanghai to build its own disinfection facility but still needed approval from relevant government departments for construction, Sun Zhicheng, deputy head of the team, dismissed his concern that the procedure will be time consuming.

"I can promise you now that the factory's production will not be affected because of any government procedure," said Sun, also deputy director general of the National Development and Reform Commission's social development department.

He also promised Li to address his company's financial difficulties, saying: "Add me as a friend on WeChat (an instant messaging app). I will address the problem."

Li said his company is now making every effort to increase its daily output of medical protective clothing from 2,000 pieces to 10,000, and is expected to produce 1.5 million pieces by the end of April.

"I come to help address your challenges. No matter what challenges you have, you can tell me directly," Sun told multiple companies he visited.