Epicenter Bac Giang to reopen industrial parks to keep global supply chains going

The goal is to ensure manufacturing goes on, jobs are not affected and supply chains remain unaffected since many companies in the industrial zones are key global suppliers, province officials said Monday.

Eight companies will first resume operations on Friday, including auto parts manufacturer Sanwa Vietnam and electronics components manufacturers Fuhong Precision Component Bac Giang and New Wing Interconnect Technology.

"The resumption of manufacturing will be done step by step and staggered," Nguyen Nguyen Thai, deputy director of the Bac Giang Industrial Park Investment, said.

The companies need to isolate their workers for at least three days before resumption and test all of them for Covid. The workers need to test negative twice.

Employers need to provide vehicles to transport the workers.

In the first month after resumption they need to test everyone once a week.

After the outbreak is contained, they need to conduct random tests on 10 percent of their employees before the 15th of every month.

New employees need to test negative twice in two weeks.

Bac Giang is home to 13 Samsung suppliers and Apple partners Foxconn and Luxshare.

It has had 1,454 cases of Covid in the latest wave. It has 240,000 people working in its six industrial parks.