General Director of Vissan Nguyen Ngoc An informed Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam that his company has tried to achieve the dual target set by HCMC. Despite having some Covid-19 infected employees, with the full support of the localities, manufacturing activities have been resumed here. The output now is 80 percent of the regular one; and from August 15 it will turn back to normal.
Vissan proposed that all its staff be vaccinated at least one dose, and that it be allowed to actively monitor its F1 employees once they have finished their quarantined time (under the supervision of the local medical agency). Due to the special characteristic of processing fresh meat, Vissan hopes that HCMC People’s Committee allow its slaughtering and meat transport staff to travel in curfew time.
As stated by Bui Phuong Mai, Chairwoman of Vifon’s Director Board, after implementing the ‘3 on-site’ model for one month with four regular Covid-19 tests for all current employees, her company has seen a significant rise in overhead cost while the productivity now is only 45 percent of the normal one. Therefore, many orders are still on hold.
She wishes to have a better solution than this ‘3 on-site’ model so that the working activity can be 100 percent resumed, and thus processing all orders on time. Otherwise, Vifon and other similar businesses will be penalized because of not being able to fulfill their orders as stated in the contracts, leading to a market share loss in the future.
Chairwoman of HCMC Food and Foodstuff Association Ly Kim Chi stated that many businesses in the city find it difficult to access vaccine and let their staff vaccinated even though they have submitted the vaccination list already. This might create more pressure on the food supply chain since these enterprises can no longer maintain the ‘3 on-site’ model.
"The Association has suggested that HCMC urgently allocate 1,949 vaccine doses to the districts where 11 essential commodities manufacturers are sited. In addition, all staff of the same company should be vaccinated together at one round so that they can design upcoming manufacturing activities accordingly”, said Ms. Ly Kim Chi.
Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam commented that HCMC right now is the fiercest battlefield in this Covid-19 fight. The application of Directive 16 has brought about various difficulties to the public as well as manufacturers.
Besides Vissan and Vifon, he has received feedbacks from many other food processing companies regarding the performance reduction and abnormally high demands. Therefore, he proposed that the municipal authorities give top priority in the vaccination campaign to employees of key enterprises. It is possible that the healthcare agency of the city delivers the requested vaccine doses to specific businesses in need, with the commitment that they will use these doses to the correct subjects.
Furthermore, businesses can actively sign contracts with medical organizations for daily health status monitoring task to timely discover and treat infected cases.
The HCMC Department of Health received the direction of the Deputy Prime Minister and promised to create favorable conditions for enterprises to cooperate with local state or private medical agencies to vaccinate employees on site, ensuring transparency and safety.
The Department also suggested that businesses collaborate with local healthcare units to monitor the health of their workers in the last 14 days of the quarantine time.
Employees of Tikinow Smart Logistics Ltd. are on duty. (Photo: SGGP)
Regarding inadequacies in inter-district goods delivery, in distribution to medical lockdown areas, and in limited warehouse space in districts of small surface area as reported by Tikinow Smart Logistics Ltd., Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam suggested that the business establish temporary storage sites in districts and let the local voluntary force in medical lockdown areas to receive goods at regulated points before delivering these goods to buyers.
Vice Chairwoman of HCMC People’s Committee Phan Thi Thang informed that on August 3, HCMC People’s Committee hosted a meeting to listen and then address current trouble reported by businesses in HCMC Food and Foodstuff Association.
Other unaddressed problems like vaccine access, employees coming back to work after medical quarantine time, traveling in curfew time will be handled by flexible solutions so that the food and foodstuff supply chain can be maintained successfully in HCMC, especially during this social distance period.
“Since HCMC needs to fight for a long time, certain short-term methods prove impractical. One solution sometimes cannot apply to all businesses and all pandemic prevention forces. The city needs to be more flexible. No matter what solutions are chosen, it is of top priority to maintain production and distribution of essential goods such as medical equipment, food and foodstuff. Therefore, manufacturers of these merchandise kinds must receive the best protection via special behavior criteria, making them more at ease in working activities”, said Mr. Dam.
One possible method as suggested by the Deputy Prime Minister is to schedule shifts for employees according to accommodation and the green / red area status. Finding suitable temporary hostels or dormitories for workers and organizing safe pickups for workers are also highly recommended.
