The foreign ministry says that Vietnam has a need for face masks recently donated from Taiwan.
That’s after lawmaker Lu Yu-ling questioned the need for the donation, saying that Vietnam itself recently donated close to a million masks to countries in the EU and elsewhere Southeast Asia.
Foreign Minister Joseph Wu says that Taiwan takes the size, population, and pandemic status of countries before deciding where it will donate masks. He says that careful surveys into a country’s needs are done before Taiwan pledges any masks.
The head of the foreign ministry’s East Asian Affairs Department, Ger Baushuan, says that Vietnam has a population of 90 million people, but is only able to produce five million face masks a day. He says that Vietnam does have a need for face masks from Taiwan, and that donated face masks go directly to front-line personnel in the country.