In an official dispatch to the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) said that in fact, currently only about 30% of seafood enterprises in the Southern provinces ensures the conditions "3 on-site". But these businesses are also extremely difficult to maintain production because of soaring costs and can mobilize 30-50% of the workforce only.
In particular, the average production capacity has been reduced to only 40-50% compared to before. It is estimated that the overall capacity of the whole area will decrease to only 30-40%. Materials, accessories, packaging... for seafood processing also shrunk, reducing supply capacity by 50%.
Therefore, VASEP and businesses believe that the implementation of "3 on-site" is only a temporary solution in the short term and can only last from 2-3 weeks for medium enterprises and 4-5 weeks for the large ones.
Workers at a pangasius processing factory. Photo: Cuu Long
In contrast, with the remaining 70% of businesses that did not qualify for the "3 on-site" implementation have to stop production, they suffered equally heavy losses. Many businesses are in a situation of bank debt, supplier debt, loss of customers, the risk of not being able to mobilize workers after the lockdown.
Faced with the risk of breaking the seafood production and export chain, VASEP proposed that the Government give priority to immediate vaccination for workers at seafood factories.
"Due to the fact that the amount of vaccine is limited and not available at once, the Association earnestly requests the Prime Minister to consider the order of priority for components to be vaccinated against covid-19," VASEP suggested and said that it should be focus on injecting workers at seafood processing factories so that enterprises can maintain markets and export partners. Besides, this helps businesses maintain production and jobs for a lot of workers, including farmers - fishermen exploiting the sea and producing raw materials.
In parallel with the vaccination, VASEP proposed the Ministry of Health to complete the set of rules and organize training for provinces and businesses to implement "health check on-site". Accordingly, businesses will actively use the medical team, the factory's medical station, self-organize testing for employees twice a month. Enterprise's experience is applied in circulation and transactions. The rest, CDC will organize testing for businesses once a month, thus ensuring each worker is tested 3 times a month.
The Ministry of Health also needs to have instructions on timely handling with businesses that perform "3 on-site" such as detecting F0, zoning and isolating only risk areas, disinfecting spray, testing...
In addition, VASEP also proposed to support workers and employees in difficulty and support businesses to reduce bank loan interest rates, reduce electricity bills by 30% at least until the end of 2021...
Source: vnexpress.net, SEABINA GROUP's translation
