KATHMANDU, March 10: At a time when the Nepali market is witnessing an acute shortage of face masks, President of Nepal Chamber of Commerce (NCC) Dr Rajesh Kaji Shrestha on Tuesday said that the private sector will produce 15 thousand face masks a day.
Shrestha who is a veteran entrepreneur made the remarks during a meeting of the high-level coordination committee formed by the government to prevent and contain the novel coronavirus. The meeting was summoned to take the stock of the situation amid the fear of COVID-19 spread in the country.
He also said that the customers will be able to buy masks at Rs 7 each. "We'll manufacture masks in order to supply them to every wholesale shop and district," informed Shrestha.
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On the occasion, other entrepreneurs also committed to distributing a mask free of cost to the passengers coming from the Tribhuwan International Airport.
Emerging from the meeting, Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada said that Nepal's import of goods from India has not faced any difficulties except for some medicines. "Our import from India is as usual," he said.
According to Khatiwada, the meeting discussed the collaboration between the government and private sector to meet the demands of food and goods supply in the market so that people would not face shortage of daily commodities.
"We urge the people not to have unnecessary reserves of cooking gas, medicines and other essentials," he said.
During the meeting, the entrepreneurs suggested the government bringing the goods quarantined at Rasuwagadhi and Tatopani border points. "The entrepreneurs told us that they have stock of necessary medicines and foodstuffs for at least six months and petroleum products for three months," the minister told reporters.
In the discussion held at the Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers at Singh Durbar, Ministers for Finance, Health, Industry and Commerce and Tourism were present on behalf of the government side while representatives of Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Nepal Chamber of Commerce and Confederation of Nepalese Industries and other stakeholders joined it.
