Kingdom produces PPE gear
MEDICAL supplies from Cambodia have been donated to member countries of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to assist in the fight against Covid-19, said an ADB report published on July 9.
The report stated that the supplies were donated as a response to global efforts to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. The Health Sector Group of the ADB’s Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department (SDCC) mobilised $48.3 million in funding early this year for the Technical Assistance on Regional Support to Address the Outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 ( TA) project.
ADB received requests from a ll its developing member countries to use funds to undertake procurement of urgently needed medical supplies.
By the end of June, ADB, through its Procurement, Portfolio, and Financial Management Department (PPFD), procured and awarded $15 million worth of contracts with various suppliers of personal protective equipment (PPE), testing kits, diagnostics equipment, lab reagents, and other critical items to fight the disease.
This is in addition to the $16.7 million in procurement services being undertaken by UNICEF to assist in the TA project, which targets developing member countries of the ADB.
The ADB report said: “Medtecs Group [Cambodia] was one of the suppliers selected through the competitive procurement process conducted by PPFD and was awarded a contract for $5 million to produce protective gowns, coveralls and shoe covers to be distributed to frontline health workers in 11 developing member countries.”
The company has been operating in Cambodia since 1999 and employs 5,500 people at its Kampong Cham factory. About 82 per cent of the workforce is composed of women. The factory has provided stable jobs for people living in the surrounding area.
“The entire production, which consisted of nearly 1.2 million garments, took approximately one month [to fulfil], with the company scaling up operations to meet the global PPE demand. The company now has a monthly production capacity of up to eight million gowns, 2.5 million coveralls and four million shoe covers.
“The finished goods passed an independent third-party inspection, and began being dispatched from Cambodia in late June for transportation to the various destination countries,” the report said.
ADB’s PPFD principa l procurement specia list Jesper Pederson, said: “ADB is pleased to play our part in directly procuring and facilitating t he mobilisation of the urgently needed supplies from globa l sources to different developing member countries.”