AS Watson Group, the operators of over 7,800 Watsons stores in Asia and Europe, is converting part of its water production plant in the Hong Kong New Territories into an assembly line to manufacture face masks. The world's largest health and beauty retail group stated that it had to reconfigure its production facility in order to meet the growing demand for the product due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The company, which is owned by Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison, plans to sell its three-layer filtering masks at HK$79.9 or $10 for a box of 30 pieces. According to a statement released by the company on Monday, it will start to make the masks available at its announced prices on its offline and online outlets by next week.
The increase in its production capacity of the particular product will allow AS Watson to sell them at lower prices. Since the start of the pandemic, prices for protective face masks have increased to unprecedented levels. Chinese regulators were even forced to step in to control the prices of specific medical items, which were being sold for ridiculous prices both online and offline.
AS Watson claims that its manufacturing plant, located in Tai Po in northeastern Hong Kong, should eventually be able to produce a maximum of 10 million protective facial masks per month. It revealed that it had instructed its engineers to install six automated mask production machines in a section of its water processing factory.
The entire installation was done in a month, the company claims. AS Watson Industries managing director, Michelle Chan, mentioned in a statement that the move was meant to help the community better cope with challenging times by giving them access to readily available and affordable protective gear.
AS Watsons is the latest Chinese firm to ramp up its production of medical equipment amid the surging demand. Over the past few months, there had been a huge shortage of medical supplies such as facial masks, gloves, and sanitizers. Throughout February and March, prices for the items had remained high as demand continued to increase.
In March, the Chinese government announced that it will be launching a program that would give companies producing facial masks up to HK$1.5 billion in subsidies. Over 20 companies had participated in the program, agreeing to supply a combined 34.6 million facial masks to the government and 8.2 million masks to the local market per month.
Apart from AS Watson and the subsidized companies, other Chinese firms have committed to releasing more medical products to the market this month. Local producer Lion rock Mask announced that it will start selling its masks at a price of HK$59 per box of 30 later this month.
