Economy minister says Romania can produce 50% of the masks needed by its population this year

Romania can cover from the domestic production 50% of the local need for masks until the end of this year, economy minister Virgil Popescu said in an interview at Digi24 news channel on August 26, Agerpres reported.

"I think that a higher degree of production integration would be beneficial in Romania. I said during the state of emergency that we want to integrate the complete production of mask material in Romania and we have succeeded. That company in Maramures, through a loan guaranteed by the Romanian state, has started the production of both the external and the filter material for masks. Romania can now produce a whole product and we no longer need imports for that product," said Popescu.

The company in Maramures that the economy minister referred to is Taparo Group, which started producing protective masks during the state of emergency and announced an investment of EUR 20 mln in a new factory for medical textiles that should be completed by the end of this year. The new factory will produce the textile layers for face masks, including the middle layer, for which there was no local producer in Romania until now. The factory could produce up to 100 million masks per year.

Moreover, the Rompetrol Group also announced that its petrochemical division can now produce the polymers needed for making the filtering layer for protective masks.

The economy minister also said that Romania now produces enough biocides, after more than a dozen local companies, including cosmetics producer Farmec Cluj and drug producer Antibiotice Iasi, started making disinfectants. However, Romania doesn’t have a test lab to confirm that these products comply with EU standards, which makes the authorization new products very difficult. During the state of emergency and state of alert, Romania has used the Army’s laboratories to certify that the new products are efficient.

"We are working now to accredit the Army Institute - Cantacuzino at European level to do all the tests for virucides and biocides because I think it is the only one in Romania that could do this,” Virgil Popescu said.

(Photo source: Facebook/Ministerul Economiei)