Coronavirus: Hong Kong business leaders leverage personal networks to fill gap as city struggles to source protective gear
- Some have fronted money for mask purchases, afraid other buyers would snap them up if they waited for approval
- The Hospital Authority has received private donations through business connections in the Middle East, Thailand, Japan and elsewhere
The private sector push has come as the Hospital Authority has struggled to replenish its war chest and the city government has seen its global procurement exercise run into multiple roadblocks due to export restrictions in many countries.
Among the business executives and professionals stepping up so far are former commerce ministers Fred Ma Si-hang and Greg So Kam-leung, founding president of the Hong Kong Professionals and Senior Executives Association Samuel Yung Wing-ki and former authority chairman Anthony Wu Ting-yuk.
The authority, which manages the city’s public hospitals, previously said its stock of 18 million surgical masks, 2.2 million protective suits and 1.1 million N95 respirators was only enough for one month’s use.
And while the government has ordered 40 million masks from suppliers around the world, only three million have been shipped so far.
“More than 50 friends of mine in business and political circles are helping out on all fronts,” Hospital Authority chairman Henry Fan Hung-ling told the Post this week.
“They make major acquisitions, or personally bring back several hundred or so N95 respirators from overseas trips. It’s this unity that will save Hong Kong.”
Fan was managing director of Citic Pacific, one of the first mainland-funded firms in Hong Kong, in the 1990s.
Ma and So, the former commerce ministers, secured a donation of 25,000 high-quality masks and 65,000 protective gowns from Investcorp, a global investment manager firm headquartered in Bahrain with which both have roles.
So, the company’s independent non-executive director, told the Post on Thursday that it started with his attendance at a meeting in the Middle East last month, where company staff helped him buy a few thousand masks from local pharmacies.
“I later asked Investcorp to help me buy more masks for underprivileged people in Hong Kong,” he said. “But the company was so generous that they sourced 25,000 high-quality masks and insisted on not seeking reimbursement from me.”
So said Investcorp decided to donate the masks to the Hospital Authority after he sent the company the Post’s reports on the panic buying that had gripped Hong Kong.
He added that when the authority then requested help in sourcing protective gowns, the company donated 65,000 pieces and again did not ask for payment.
The authority received the masks early this week, and the protective gowns arrived in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
Ma, who serves on Investcorp’s international advisory council, said he had contacted the fund’s executive chairman Mohammed Alardhi three weeks ago to seek their help in sourcing protective gear.
A senior executive in the banking and financial services sector before joining the Hong Kong government as minister in 2002, Ma said he had also been using his networks in other countries, including Sweden and Denmark, to source supplies of protective gear.
Samuel Yung, a senior executive in insurance sector, meanwhile, said last week he asked a colleague on holiday in Thailand to help him source supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE), including surgical gowns, eye glasses and shoe covers, for the authority.
“I passed the product catalogues to Mr Fan, who quickly decided to procure the stock, which meets the authority’s required standard,” Yung said. “Noting that the authority had to follow their established procedures in procurement, I paid the deposit, which accounted for half of the total amount of the stock, to grab the goods.
“Amid the global scramble for PPE, stock will be snatched up by other buyers if you hesitate for one or two days,” Yung said.
The first batch of protective gear he sourced is expected to arrive in Hong Kong by the end of this week.
“There is some front-end risk, but I’m willing to take it to help the authority ease the shortage of supplies,” Yung said, without detailing the amount of gear secured. “The authority will reimburse me after they check the stock. If the authority staff find the stock is not up to standard, I will donate the equipment to other organisations in need.”
Late last month, former Hospital Authority chairman Anthony Wu sourced 300,000 surgical masks from Korea, Japan and mainland China.
They were then donated to the authority, private clinics and the Hong Kong Medical Association, Wu said.
The charity foundation of tycoon Li Ka-shing, meanwhile, said earlier this week it was also busy sourcing respirators and protective suits for public hospitals. Li was reported on Wednesday to have flown back from New Zealand with more than 5,100 pieces of protective gear. The foundation also said it planned to distribute 250,000 masks to the needy.
The Ng Teng Fong Charitable Foundation, linked to Sino Group, has donated 3.5 million surgical masks to the local community over the past three weeks.
Zhou Chunling, a Hong Kong delegate to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, has sourced 600,000 surgical masks with help from her friends in Vietnam, Singapore, the US, and Russia.
She donated the masks to medical workers on the mainland as well as the underprivileged in Hong Kong.
Fan, the authority chief, said despite the donations, they remained in urgent need of more PPE as the epidemic continued to spread.
“We’re not out of the woods yet. Any assistance from the community would be much appreciated,” Fan said.
