Malaysia’s Top Glove Corporation Bhd, which makes one in every five gloves globally, expects a product shortage as demand from Europe and the United States spikes because of the widening coronavirus outbreak is exceeding its capacity reported Reuters.
The company has extended shipping times to cope with the demand surge, Executive Chairman Lim Wee Chai told Reuters by phone on Friday.
Lim said orders received in the past few weeks, mainly from Europe and the United States, were almost double the company’s production capacity. Top Glove can produce 200 million natural and synthetic rubber gloves a day.
There are now more than 600,000 coronavirus cases across 202 countries and territories globally, with the United States overtaking China as the country with the most infections. Europe continues to report the most deaths.
“Some customers panic order; normally they order 10 containers a month but now they suddenly increase to 20 containers,” he said.
The World Health Organisation warned on Friday that the “chronic global shortage of personal protective gear” is among the most urgent threats to the virus containment efforts.
This month, Top Glove stepped up its factory utilization by 10% to 95% and expects to reach near maximum utilization in April.
The company is rushing to source about 1,000 workers to keep up. Top Glove normally hires from Nepal but is now drafting workers from Malaysia because of travel restrictions.
