Taiwan – Australia Ink Medical Supplies Deal

Helping hands

Taiwan has agreed a system with Australia to move forward both nations’ bid to beat the COVID-19 pandemic.

In news out of Taiwan this week, it was announced that Taipei would send three tons of non-woven fabric to Australia. The material will then be used to make surgical face masks in Australia.

In exchange, Australia will send one million liters of alcohol to Taiwan for processing into around 4.2 million bottles of hand sanitizer. Each bottle will contain 300 milliliters of liquid.

No initial timing was given on the exchange of materials by Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) at time of typing, and it is understood Taiwan currently produces 220,000 bottles of hand sanitizer on a daily basis.

As much as 90% of the alcohol used in producing hand sanitizer in Taiwan comes from Australia, and according to reports the deal to exchange materials announced.by the MOEA comes outside existing contracts and supply chains.

As of Tuesday morning, March 31st, the COVID-19 pandemic has hit Australia much harder than Taiwan with the latest figures out of Canberra indicating over 4,500 infections so far with 19 deaths.

Taiwan meanwhile has seen just over 300 cases of infection with five deaths.

Both nations have around 24 million citizens.

The agreement with Australia is not the first such deal Taiwan has struck. A similar accord was struck with the U.S. earlier in the month with Washington laying aside the raw materials needed to produce 300,000 personal protective suits, whilst Taipei agreed to send 100,000 surgical masks to the U.S. each week once domestic production had settled.

Mark Buckton

Mark is a journalism vet of 20 years with most of those years spent in Tokyo, Japan, as a columnist for The Japan Times and numerous other publications. His work has appeared on CNN, in the BBC, NPR, and in several dozen other media forms and publications across five continents.