Iris Ohyama to produce high-performance medical masks in domestic factories

Recently NHK News on-line reported the following:

アイリスオーヤマ 高性能医療用マスクを国内工場で生産へ

2020年11月18日 23時03分

新型コロナウイルスの感染者の増加に伴って、医療用マスクの確保が課題となるなか、大手生活用品メーカーのアイリスオーヤマは、高性能な医療用マスクを国内の工場で生産する方針を固めました。

政府やマスクの業界団体によりますと、新型ウイルスが流行する前、高性能な医療用のマスクは流通量の7割ほどを中国などからの輸入に頼っていましたが、感染が拡大したことし4月以降、品不足の状況が続いていて、政府は備蓄を進めています。

こうした中、仙台市に本社があるアイリスオーヤマは、これまで中国の協力工場に生産を委託していた「N95」と呼ばれる高性能な医療用マスクの生産を来年秋にも国内で始める方針を固めました。

宮城県角田市にある工場におよそ10億円かけて設備を整え、医療用マスクを月1万枚、除菌ウエットティッシュも月100万個生産できるようにすることにしています。

大山晃弘社長は「国際間での奪い合いを避けるためにも国内生産は重要だ。今後、医療分野に進出する足がかりにしたい」と話していました。

政府は新型ウイルスの流行で不足した衛生用品の生産体制の強化を重要政策に掲げ、そのための費用を補助する制度を設けていて、今後、医療用マスクの国内生産がほかの企業にも広がるか注目されます。

Translation

Amidst an increase in the number of people infected with the new coronavirus, securing medical masks had become an issue. Iris Ohyama, a major household goods manufacturer, had decided to produce high-performance medical masks in factories within the country.

According to the government and the mask industry groups, before the outbreak of the new virus, high-performance medical masks had been relied on imports from China and other countries up to about 70% of the distribution volume. But as the infection spread since April, the shortage of goods continued and the government started stockpiling them.

Under these circumstances, Iris Ohyama, which had its headquarters in Sendai City, decided to start production of the high-performance medical masks called "N95" in Japan as from next fall, which so far had been outsourced to a partner factory in China.

The factory in Kakuda City, Miyagi Prefecture would be equipped with facilities costing about 1 billion yen, and could produce 10,000 medical masks a month, together with 1 million units of sterilized wet wipes a month.

President Akihiro Ohyama said, "Domestic production is important to avoid international competition. I would like to use it as a stepping stone to enter the medical field in the future."

The government had set an important policy to strengthen the production system for sanitary goods that was lacking due to the outbreak of the new virus, and had established a system to subsidize the cost for that. Whether the domestic production of medical masks could spread to other companies in the future would be noticed.

              So, Japan has decided to produce high-performance medical masks in factories within the country. It is one of the impacts of Covid-19 pandemic in the manufacturing world.