Mask production in Beijing reaching 500,000 per day

Two mask production factories in Beijing are producing 500, 000 facial masks per day, benefiting the capital's residents and largely easing the city's severe shortage of the products in the past Spring Festival.

Naton Medical Group, the producer of masks in Beijing's Haidian district, previously manufactured surgical orthopedic products to hospitals across the country. Since Feb 2, the company has been involved in mask production, as invited by the district government.

Within five days by Feb 7, the company completed the establishment of a mask production line, including purchasing production machines, reassigning workers and monitoring the production environment, said Zhao Yiwu, president of Naton Medical Group.

About 120 workers participated in the production of facial masks in two shifts every day and each shift worked for 12 hours. It is expected to produce 1.3 million facial masks in March, said Zhao.

Starting Feb 11, the facial masks produced by the factory had been transported to supermarkets across the capital.

According to Chaoshifa Supermarket Co Ltd, a major supermarket chain in Beijing also responsible for transportation and allocation of these facial masks, more than 5.6 million masks in over 40 vehicles had been distributed to various supermarkets, drug stores and gas stations in the capital.

Sha Haijiang, deputy district director of Haidian government, said to date, the district had produced 6 million facial masks in total.

"I was deeply grateful for the contributions enterprises made in epidemic prevention and control," he said.