[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyesook] Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, will be the first local government in the country to operate a public mask production facility.
The district announced on the 5th that it has established a KF-94 health-use public mask manufacturing facility and will begin full-scale production of public masks in collaboration with local social economy organizations.
This comes nine months after signing a technical support agreement with Samsung Biologics and receiving special adjustment grants from Incheon City to establish a stable public mask supply system in the region amid the mask supply crisis in April last year.
In December last year, the district completed an on-site inspection of the mask manufacturing facility by the Gyeongin Regional Food and Drug Administration and recently obtained certification for manufacturing and sales approval (KF-94) for quasi-drugs from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for mask production.
The public mask manufacturing facility, located on the 4th floor of the Tappion building in Yeonsu-dong (599-5, Yeonsu-dong), has one production line capable of producing up to 60 masks per minute. Of the expected 2 million masks to be produced this year (8,000 to 10,000 masks per day), 1.2 million will be used as public stockpiles for district residents.
Additional production will be supplied through purchase cooperation requests and contracts to nearby basic local governments and public institutions for use as public masks.
The district has established a collaboration system with local social economy organizations to employ socially vulnerable groups as mask manufacturing personnel.
In line with the founding purpose of social economy organizations, part of the profits will be used for various social economy-related projects and community contributions for vulnerable groups.
Since health-use masks were designated as disaster management resources in June last year, the district plans to stockpile masks produced at the public mask manufacturing facility as emergency reserves to distribute to residents, utilizing them not only for COVID-19 but also for preventing infectious diseases such as fine dust in the future.
Gonam-seok, Mayor of Yeonsu-gu, said, "This achievement, difficult to accomplish in a short period, was made possible through collaboration with Samsung Biologics and social enterprises to establish a stable mask supply system." He added, "We will do our best to protect the lives and safety of district residents from infectious diseases and fine dust as well as COVID-19."
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