JAKARTA - The Ministry of Industry focuses on encouraging optimum productivity of the personal protective equipment (PPE) industry as an effort to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. The demand for PPE in the country is increasing, especially to meet the demand for medical personnel, given the increasing number of patients of the disease caused by the coronavirus.
"PPE producers are calculating their production capability for the next 6-8 months. This calculation will be adjusted to the distribution schedule to each user, such as hospitals that really need it," said Director General of the Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Textile Industries (IKFT) of the Ministry of Industry, Muhammad Khayam in Jakarta, Tuesday (31/3).
Khayam said, under normal conditions or when there was no Covid-19 outbreak, the domestic PPE industry produced as many as 1 million units per month.
At present, Indonesia has 28 PPE producers with a total production capacity of up to 17.8 million units per month. Of the 28 PPE producers, five companies are ramping up, while the rest are in preparation and are targeted to start in early April 2020.
"We are optimistic that PPE production can be quickly produced, because raw material are already available. At the end of April 2020, an estimated 5-10 million PPE can be distributed,” he concluded. (LM)