Forwarded from 📡Guardians of Hong Kong
Owner of AbouThai hopes to open a face mask production line in Hong Kong with help from Li Ka Shing Foundation
The well-known “yellow” (pro-movement) business, AbouThai, obtains thousands of boxes of face masks from Thailand today, which attracted long queues. The business has reserved a portion of masks for Hospital Authority frontline health care workers and border control staff (including those from Customs Department, Immigration Department and the Department of Health).
Shop owner, Mike Lam, had worked in customs before. He follows current affairs and politics closely, and has posted on social media on 11 June 2019 in support of the shopkeepers' strike the next day. "Since the beginning of January, when I saw how the epidemic was unravelling with the lack of supply of face masks among general public, I had already started to increase my inventory,” said Mike, in his interview with Hong Kong Citizen News.
"My company sells Thai products and Thailand also exports face masks. I hope that I can help Hong Kongers, particularly frontline health care workers and frontline workers at the borders. As an entrepreneur, I need to fulfill my social responsibility." He mentioned that at earlier on when supply was still adequate, he had provided masks to individual district council members to meet the needs of the community. But nowadays, it is much more difficult to secure a sufficient supply of masks.
Mike said he normally gets his masks from different Thai suppliers. As the virus started to spread, “every supplier is now facing an increase in global demand. Many places around the world are experiencing a shortage surgical face masks for various reasons. I am queueing up as well. The fact that I managed to get hold of a large supply today is probably just luck,” he explained.
Mike knew about some low-income families in Hong Kong who have been washing their masks and reusing them. "I cannot accept that this is happening in a world-class city. This is worse than the third world. How can the government find this acceptable?” He is not certain when the next shipment of masks will come. "It is difficult to say. Even friends working in the disciplined services, in Hospital Authority and my family are all lacking face masks."
The 13 shops in the AbouThai chain were each given a quota of 300 boxes of masks (a total of 3,900 boxes for all 13 shops) this morning. Each person can purchase one box (50 each) at $49. There were long queues at every shop this morning.
Having seen the shortage of face mask worsened, Mike was hoping that he could contact the Li Ka Shing Foundation to obtain funds or a loan to set up a factory for manufacturing face masks. "If I have $100 million, I can open up a production line immediately. I have estimated that the number of masks produced could meet the needs of 7 million citizens for two months, with an average production cost of $0.24 each. If so, everyone, regardless of their social class, can buy masks at a reasonable price to ensure health and safety."
He stressed that any prevention is a passive measure. “An active measure against the pandemic would be the government fully closing the borders,” he said. Is it too late? "It cannot wait. It needs to be done now. If you close the border just one second sooner, then it could prevent another person from getting infected.”
Source: Hong Kong Citizen News, January 29, 2020
https://bit.ly/3bkU1jd
#AbouThai #YellowEconomyCircle #Mask
The well-known “yellow” (pro-movement) business, AbouThai, obtains thousands of boxes of face masks from Thailand today, which attracted long queues. The business has reserved a portion of masks for Hospital Authority frontline health care workers and border control staff (including those from Customs Department, Immigration Department and the Department of Health).
Shop owner, Mike Lam, had worked in customs before. He follows current affairs and politics closely, and has posted on social media on 11 June 2019 in support of the shopkeepers' strike the next day. "Since the beginning of January, when I saw how the epidemic was unravelling with the lack of supply of face masks among general public, I had already started to increase my inventory,” said Mike, in his interview with Hong Kong Citizen News.
"My company sells Thai products and Thailand also exports face masks. I hope that I can help Hong Kongers, particularly frontline health care workers and frontline workers at the borders. As an entrepreneur, I need to fulfill my social responsibility." He mentioned that at earlier on when supply was still adequate, he had provided masks to individual district council members to meet the needs of the community. But nowadays, it is much more difficult to secure a sufficient supply of masks.
Mike said he normally gets his masks from different Thai suppliers. As the virus started to spread, “every supplier is now facing an increase in global demand. Many places around the world are experiencing a shortage surgical face masks for various reasons. I am queueing up as well. The fact that I managed to get hold of a large supply today is probably just luck,” he explained.
Mike knew about some low-income families in Hong Kong who have been washing their masks and reusing them. "I cannot accept that this is happening in a world-class city. This is worse than the third world. How can the government find this acceptable?” He is not certain when the next shipment of masks will come. "It is difficult to say. Even friends working in the disciplined services, in Hospital Authority and my family are all lacking face masks."
The 13 shops in the AbouThai chain were each given a quota of 300 boxes of masks (a total of 3,900 boxes for all 13 shops) this morning. Each person can purchase one box (50 each) at $49. There were long queues at every shop this morning.
Having seen the shortage of face mask worsened, Mike was hoping that he could contact the Li Ka Shing Foundation to obtain funds or a loan to set up a factory for manufacturing face masks. "If I have $100 million, I can open up a production line immediately. I have estimated that the number of masks produced could meet the needs of 7 million citizens for two months, with an average production cost of $0.24 each. If so, everyone, regardless of their social class, can buy masks at a reasonable price to ensure health and safety."
He stressed that any prevention is a passive measure. “An active measure against the pandemic would be the government fully closing the borders,” he said. Is it too late? "It cannot wait. It needs to be done now. If you close the border just one second sooner, then it could prevent another person from getting infected.”
Source: Hong Kong Citizen News, January 29, 2020
https://bit.ly/3bkU1jd
#AbouThai #YellowEconomyCircle #Mask
眾新聞
阿布泰店主冀開港人口罩生產線：盼李嘉誠基金會撥或借$1億
阿布泰國生活店主林景楠（Mike Lam）建議，李嘉誠基金會可撥款或借款1億元，令他可向相熟的泰國供應商，要求馬上增設香港專屬口罩生產線，預計金額足以為全港700萬市民生產兩個月的口罩貨量。