Philippine PPE makers to invest $36 mn more

26 Aug '20

2 min read

Pic: Shutterstock

Members of the Confederation of Philippine Manufacturers of PPE (CPMP) are investing $36 million to raise production of medical-grade personal protective equipment (PPE) to cater to domestic demand. This is in addition to the $35-million investment done when the companies repurposed their factories to make PPE, CPMP executive director Rosette Carillo said.

CPMP comprises Medtecs International Corp. Ltd., EMS Components Assembly Inc., Reliance Producers Cooperative, Luen Thai International Group Philippines, Inc., and Tacca Industries Pty Ltd.

EMS has started to pour in additional investments, while Australian firm Tacca is bringing in manufacturing of non-woven fabric used in surgical masks and Luen Thai is also investing to localise the production of PPE components, according to a report in a Philippine newspaper.

At the onset of the pandemic, the domestic market had a shortage of medical-grade PPE to protect the healthcare workers while they were attending to COVID-19 patients.

There are no PPE manufacturers in the Philippines except for Medtecs, which is engaged in manufacturing and exporting surgical masks.

This is when the four other member firms of CPMP, as well as the Confederation of Wearable Exporters of the Philippines, heeded the government’s call to produce PPE.

Reliance and EMS converted 12 per cent and 18 per cent of their factories respectively into PPE manufacturing units.

But a key challenge is demand. The biggest customer for PPE is the government now, CPMP president Lawrence delos Santos said. And the way the government procures is not necessarily in sync with production.

Government procurement tends to favour the lowest bid, and that is where China-made PPE have an edge. The country also does not have a testing laboratory to assess the quality of imported PPE.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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