An-Najah News - Malaysia’s Top Glove Corporation Bhd (TPGC.KL), 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.
Executive Chairman Lim Wee Chai said that the company has extended shipping times to cope with the demand surge.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. “Some customers panic order; normally they order 10 containers a month but now they suddenly increase to 20 containers,” he said.
The World Health Organization warned on Friday that the “chronic global shortage of personal protective gear” is among the most urgent threats to the virus containment efforts.
The exceptional buying momentum could last another three months but orders are expected to remain strong for up to nine months even as demand from Asian markets has started to slow slightly, Lim said.
“We manage their volume, limit them to buy so much per customer. We have to manage but it’s a good problem for us to solve,” he said.
This month, Top Glove stepped up its factory utilization by 10% to 95% and expects to reach near maximum utilization in April.