Private enterprises do their part to fight against COVID-19

Private enterprises in Xiamen, Fujian province, are promoting coordinated resumption of work and production in the upstream and downstream of industrial chains to power through the COVID-19 epidemic.

One example is the Xiamen-headquartered Yealink, a global brand that specializes in video conferencing, voice communications and collaboration solutions. The city has helped Yealink's foundries to resume work and production.

Demand in the remote office market has exploded during the outbreak, which not only promotes a large increase in the number of customers for Yealink's soft-end video conferencing system, but also drives product sales. In the past quarter, Yealink's orders rose steadily. While restoring its own production capacity, Yealink assisted its supporting companies to resume work and production.

Chen Guilong, the relevant person in charge of the foundry Hualian Electronics, a subsidiary of Yealink, said: "Thanks to the order from Yealink, our production capacity was fairly stable in the first quarter."

Chen said that at the initial stage of the resumption of work, their capacity recovery was affected due to insufficient operating rates. Yealink reported the labor shortage problem to the local government in time and officials helped coordinate and solve it.

Chen said that the delivery date of some products was affected by the outbreak and Yealink also helped to communicate and coordinate.

In addition to the foundries, suppliers of plastic products and mold have also benefited from the process.

"Some 60 percent of our production capacity comes from Yealink," said Lin Yirong, director in charge of the Zhangzhou Lianshenghong Plastic Technology.

In the first quarter, Yealink's stable orders helped the company maintain work and production. Their orders in the domestic market have increased significantly. "Next, we will continue to increase investment in the domestic market based on their understanding of overseas market trends," Lin said.

Providing sufficient raw materials for downstream enterprises to produce is another effective method for economic recovery during the pandemic prevention and control period.

As the virus spreads overseas, the demand for masks is still increasing. However, the shortage of melt blown cloth, the main raw material for the production of masks, has restricted the production of masks.

To meet market demand, Xiamen Yanjiang New Materials transformed three melt blown cloth production lines in February.

In March, three new production lines were added, and the daily production capacity was increased from 6 metric tons to 12 tons. A total of more than 200 tons of melt blown cloth were supplied to more than 50 downstream mask manufacturers, including most mask manufacturers in Xiamen.

As the epidemic spreads overseas, the demand for medical masks continues to increase. Yanjiang New Materials recently announced it will produce and sell medical melt blown non-woven fabrics. The company has completed third-party testing and internal commercial production testing. So far, it has received orders from about 55 mask manufacturers.

Production capacity of Xiamen's Lets Group, an enterprise in architectural science and transformation of scientific and technological achievements, has recovered about 90 percent of its capacity the same period last year, thanks to the recovery of the infrastructure sector. With increase in production capacity of the group, its upstream water-reducing agent polyether enterprises Jiahua Group and Fujian Zhongshan Chemical have also resumed work and production.

The company said it has provided free concrete accelerators, early-strength agents and technical services for the construction of isolated hospitals in the epidemic area.