Presently, overseas orders have decreased tremendously, causing the price of raw materials such as non-woven fabric, which was once in high demand, to also decrease drastically.
Chinese media Security Times (STCN) claimed in an article that, recently in China, the price of low-quality non-woven fabric has decreased from 450,000 yuan ($63,700 USD) to 2,000 yuan ($280 USD) per ton and the price of high-quality nonwoven fabric has also dropped from 650,000 yuan ($92,000 USD) to 400,000 yuan ($56,600 USD) per ton in just 6 days.
STCN interviewed Ms. Xu, an investor in mask production in Yangzhong City, Jiangsu Province, China, and she indicated that the manufacturing machine for the non-woven fabric was sold for 12,000 yuan ($1,700 USD) per unit before the epidemic. The price per unit increased to 30,000 yuan ($4,200 USD) after the outbreak and it once reached a peak of 150,000 yuan ($21,200 USD) per unit. However, this crazy price increase only continued until April 15th when the government suddenly decided to cease all production of the non-woven fabric.
Ms. Hsu revealed that there were rumors about a total of 5,000 machines in Yangzhong City at that time and many people lost money because the government suddenly ceased the production altogether. The non-woven fabric was once sold for 450,000 yuan ($63,700 USD) but suddenly it was worth only 2,000 yuan ($280 USD). Now, even the production machines are sold for just 10,000 yuan ($1,400 USD), but nobody wants to buy them. The machines are now sold as metal scrap.
The mask factory owner in Xiantao City in Hubei Province said: “I own the largest mask production plant in Xiantao City, but the masks don’t sell well now. If you want to export masks now, the production cost is pretty low right now because the selling price has decreased drastically, it’s sold for about a little over 10 cents ($0.01 USD) per mask. Since the domestic market has been saturated, the demand for masks is not as high as before so the price has been declining.”
The factory owner further indicated to NTD that the exports of masks have been decreasing nonstop. He said: “Some time ago, the customs were very strict and detained a lot of masks, so the export volume was very, very little. It was not very good but it depends on how you export the masks. We have a lot of masks here sold for a little over 10 cents ($0.01 USD). Owners from Zhejiang Province and Shandong Province collected the masks and later exported them.”
Another person in charge of a mask manufacturing business in Hunan also told the media that, before April, any quality of nonwoven fabric could be sold for more than 400,000 yuan ($56,600 USD), but not anymore.
Public information reveals that there are three levels of filtering efficiency of non-woven fabric, namely, 90, 95, and 99, which are able to filter 90%, 95%, and 99% of non-oily particles respectively. The nonwoven fabrics that are above the 95 level are considered to have met the standard, anything below 80 level is basically junk.
Nevertheless, many netizens exposed the fact that many non-woven fabrics below 80 level have been sold for 400,000 yuan ($56,600 USD) to 500,000 yuan ($70,700 USD) per ton during the pandemic. The masks were scarce in the domestic market and no one cared about the quality and standards. Right now, the wholesale price of the cheapest non-woven fabric is only 13 cents ($0.02 USD) and there are suppliers who simply give the fabric to clients for free.
Gao Weibang, a Taiwanese entrepreneur and social activist, said: “Integrity is the foundation of business but the mask businesses under the system of the Chinese Communist regime have no quality control. When importers found out that these masks are below standards, they won’t be willing to use them because this is medical equipment that endangers the safety of life. Before, when the world was in high demand for masks, you could increase the price because you had lots of them, but when you lied to the world, how could you expect others to repurchase your masks? As a result, the price plummeted.”
Previously, Tech Planet, a subsidiary of China’s tech media, interviewed a mask export middleman, Chen Guo-Hua, who exposed many disruptions in mask production in China. These disruptions include uncertified mask manufacturing plants profiteering and 60 percent of mask factories in the market that have no sterility control.
Gao Weibang continued saying: “The Chinese government has never complied with these international regulations, whether in the past or at present, so I think the CCP will never rebuild mask businesses or medical supplies businesses, and no one will ever purchase these unqualified masks. In fact, western countries are trying to decouple from the CCP, not just in the area of medical supplies. Of course, the economy in China is declining massively, and eventually, China will be locked out and no one will want to deal with them.”
Outsider analysis indicated that the CCP’s mask diplomacy has been a complete failure, which in turn has accelerated the bankruptcy of Chinese mask manufacturers. And the problems extended by the pandemic have led the world to recognize the truth about the Chinese Communist Party and speed up its disengagement.
