Dong Nai strives to protect the production chain

Workers of Song May Industrial Park get vaccinated against Covid-19. Photo: CTV

Efforts to maintain

It has been nearly one and a half months since Au Viet My Wood Joint Stock Company implemented production under the “three on spot” and the company gave an additional allowance of 500,000 to 1 million VND per month for each employee to encourage workers and ensure the safety of the factory, the company's Director, Nguyen Thanh Tuan also worked under “three on the spot” with the employees and workers.

“Maintaining production in the current conditions is very difficult when a series of costs increase, even greater than the damage if the company stops production. But in the long term, the company still has to accept losses to ensure stability for company and workers' lives,” said Nguyen Thanh Tuan.

According to Tuan, currently the price of imported wood materials jumped by 50-60%, while export orders had been signed and had fixed prices since the beginning of the year, manufactured goods were likely to lose. The domestic trade segment also continued to fall because a series of customers buying wood materials of the company stopped working and the decrease recorded in July was 30% and continued to decrease by 60% since the beginning of August. “The provincial leaders said they would be determined to control the pandemic situation by September 1 basically. From now until then, we will try to maintain activities to recover as quickly as possible. We also hope to have a vaccine to inject for employees soon and are ready to pay the fee for vaccination at the company to stabilise production soon,” said Nguyen Thanh Tuan.

Although only operating at a sustained level with about 30% of capacity, Tuan assessed that this was also a great luck in the current condition. Because a series of large-scale firms in Dong Nai province had to stop operating nearly a month ago, such as Changshin Vietnam Company, Hwaseung Vina, Pouchen Vietnam, and Phong Thai Group. With a workforce of tens of thousands of people, the suspension of production was a reluctant decision as the companies could not arrange the “three on spot” or “one route, two destinations” options.

Even many enterprises have arranged a plan to continue production, but recently they had to stop due to problems arising during operation. According to the list of Dong Nai Industrial Parks Management Board (DIZA), this unit received and handled 1,179 firms registered to implement the “three on spot” option with 138,746 employees staying at the companies of total 341,000 employees. In which, 1,163 businesses implemented the “three on spot” option, six firms implemented the “one route, two destinations” option and 10 firms applied the two options at the same time.

However, after a period of implementation, some firms have proposed to stop “three on spot” option, reducing the number of employees working at the firm. Specifically, 50 firms have proposed to stop operating “three on spot” with more than 8,000 employees of total 25,432 employees. Along with that, 216 firms applied for a reduction in labour with more than 5,000 people out of a total of more than 42,000 employees. Accordingly, up to now, in industrial zones of Dong Nai, there are only 1,129 firms implementing the above three options.

Protecting the "green zone" for production

The fact more and more firms are temporarily suspending operation has caused the production chain to be broken, increasing difficulties for operating enterprises due to the shortage of input materials, moreover, it has potential worry that the Vietnamese businesses will slip out of the global supply chain. Therefore, protecting production is identified as an urgent requirement in the current situation in Dong Nai. A series of synchronous and drastic measures are being implemented, aiming to control the pandemic by September 1.

Two campaigns are being implemented, including accelerating Covid-19 vaccination and large-scale Covid-19 testing. In particular, firms that are implementing “three on spot” will be given priority to vaccinate to ensure safety and establish a "green zone" at the place of production. Last week, DIZA sent a document to the health centres of districts and cities in the province on the implementation of vaccination for firms implementing the “three on spot” in industrial parks. According to the list published by DIZA, there are currently more than 125,000 employees staying and working at 1,129 enterprises under the “three on spot”.

As for large-scale Covid-19 testing, about 2.1 million people will be sampled for testing from August 16 to August 31 to detect and handle infections. At the same time, Dong Nai province also continues to implement social distancing according to Directive 16 of the Government until the end of August. At the same time, localities with a large number of workers' hostels such as Bien Hoa City, Nhon Trach District, Trang Bom and Long Thanh also distance workers in the hostels. Accordingly, localities will take advantage of unused schools to make isolation areas, requisite workshops and facilities of firms that are temporarily suspending production in the area.

Taking care of people, especially in high-risk areas, is of special concern so that people can cooperate well in pandemic prevention and control.

Accompanying agencies and departments in their efforts to control the pandemic, many firms have contributed and supported resources and means for Dong Nai in the past time to quickly control and repel the pandemic. In the past week, Vietnam Suzuki Co., Ltd. has donated four Carry cars worth nearly 1.1 billion VND to Dong Nai medical industry; Scavi Joint Stock Company presented 3,700 Covid-19 rapid test kits worth 500 million VND to the People's Committee of Bien Hoa City. It is known that up to now, about 70 businesses in the area have donated money and Covid-19 testing machines, ventilators, ambulances, light trucks and medical equipment for pandemic prevention with a total value of more than 40 billion dong.