Vietnam’s manufacturing companies pushes for vaccination of workers

Vietnam Association for Supporting Industries (VASI), Vietnam Timber and Forest Product Association and (VIFOREST) and Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS) have called on the government to accelerate the vaccination of workers in the country. 

VASI chairman Le Duong Quang said businesses were willing to pay for their employees to be inoculated quickly and effectively.  

“The biggest wish of support industry firms at this time is that the government speed up the COVID-19 vaccination and give priority to manufacturing workers,” he said on behalf of VASI, which has 300 members employing about 60,000 workers and is part of the global supply chain for manufacturing industries in Vietnam and for exports. 

As supporting-industry companies operate in industrial zones, the risk of the spread of the virus is perpetually high, threatening to disrupt production and causing a serious impact on the supply chains of global corporations, he said. 

VIFOREST has offered to buy 1 million doses of the vaccine to protect the 700,000 workers in the wood industry which is expected to bring in US$15 billion in exports this year. 

VIFOREST chairman Do Xuan Lap said, “If each business spends its own money to buy vaccines for its employees, this cost will be many times cheaper than the damage caused by COVID-19.” 

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VITAS has also submitted a similar request to the government with its chairman Vu Duc Giang saying that giving priority for firms with large numbers of employees would “speed up the community immunity and help businesses stabilise production”. 

Vietnam plans to buy 150 million doses of vaccines this year to immunise 75 million of its 96 million people, but manufacturing workers fall far down the list in the priority groups for vaccination, according to Vietnam Net Global.