Equipment suppliers providing assistance

Producers of medical supplies in North China's Shanxi province are stepping up efforts to manufacture urgently demanded equipment in Central China's Hubei province, which is being severely hit by the outbreak of the contagious novel coronavirus.

It's a routine for companies to halt business during the Spring Festival holiday, which was celebrated in late January this year, as employees are normally off work to reunite with their families.

This year, the Spring Festival routine was broken as the deadly infection spread in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, and then spread to the entire country.

Short supply of items such as masks, protective clothing, goggles and disposable gloves has begun to make headlines in the media.

To deal with the situation, medical supplies companies in Shanxi, as well as their counterparts throughout the country, rapidly responded to demand.

Among such companies is White Pigeon, a labor-protective clothing producer based in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi province.

Qin Min, chairwoman of the company, told the media that "we have been working three shifts a day to produce masks since Jan 29".

The company received a mandate to resume production from the local government on Jan 28. Employees returned to work the next day, Qin said.

"We are glad most of our employees are from Taiyuan and its neighboring areas, so we could reach a high-production capacity very quickly," Qin said.

Responding even quicker to the emergency was Xinhua Chemicals, based in Taiyuan.

The company began producing medical supplies on Jan 23 and delivered more than 30,000 masks in one week, according to its executives.

On Jan 28, the company donated 3 million yuan ($427,800) worth of medical supplies to Wuhan, including 1,000 sets of air purifiers and 1,000 gas masks.

Most of the items have been delivered by the Taiyuan branch of China Post Group, a State-owned company for postal services, delivery, logistics and finance.

The China Post Taiyuan branch's fleet arrived in Wuhan and Huanggang-two Hubei cities severely hit by the virus-on Jan 31.

In Gaoping, another city in Shanxi province, its mayor Yuan Jian had a meeting with executives of the local Danyang Rubber Plastics on Jan 28, asking them to start production of surgical masks immediately.

Danyang owns an assembly line for surgery masks, which has yet to be put into production.

In the face of emergency, the company completed workers training, equipment testing and purchased raw materials in just two days. The first batch of masks rolled off the line on Jan 30.

"This was a race against time and we succeeded," Yuan said.

According to the mayor, the city now has two production lines for masks, with a combined output of 100,000 a day.

In another development, a lorry carrying 30 metric tons of disinfectant departed Biomono Biotech in Yuncheng, Shanxi province.

The disinfectant, worth about 1.8 million yuan, will be donated to Huanggang city for disease control.

"We spent five days producing this batch of products using the full capacity of our plant," said Wang Yan, chief technical officer of the company.

"We are grateful to our employees for their devotion and to the local government for their coordination," Wang said, adding that the company is keen to make further contribution to the country's fight against the virus.

Li Yali contributed to the story.