Zhejiang province native Zhao Puzhou recently bought a mask factory in Cambodia. When the factory with a planned daily production capacity of 100,000 masks goes into operation, the masks will quickly be sent to China at a cost of 0.3 yuan (4.3 US cents) each.
Masks have become precious during this year's Spring Festival holiday, as China battles the novel coronavirus outbreak.
"As soon as I learned about the epidemic in China, I started to think about how I could do my part to help," says the 45-year-old, who's also chairman of the Cambodia-Zhejiang Chamber of Commerce.
Instead of looking for masks from overseas, Zhao took over a plant to produce a constant supply.
"I will produce masks in accordance with Chinese standards," Zhao says."It's a pity that the factory isn't big enough to produce more."
Zhao is among tens of thousands of overseas Chinese who've thrown themselves into China's fight against the novel coronavirus, despite living thousands of miles away. The sudden surge in demand for medical supplies, as well as the Lunar New Year holiday, which is a traditional shutdown period for most plants in China, has resulted in a shortage in epidemic-control materials for hospitals.
CHINT, a global smart-energy solution provider headquartered in Zhejiang, is also searching high and low for protective suits and masks through its branch offices, agencies and business partners abroad.
As of Saturday, the company had ordered 2 million sets of medical supplies from overseas, 293,000 of which had already arrived in China. Supplies from Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and Spain will also be sent soon.
Lei Hengjie, regional manager of CHINT in southern Africa, says it usually "takes several days to make a transaction in Africa." But their business partners "took risks, bringing huge amounts of cash and waiting at the doors of the medical companies before they opened. All our business partners and clients are trying hard to help".
The whole country has been mobilized. A tour group of over 70 people recently helped to deliver nearly two metric tons of epidemic-control materials to China from Moscow.
On the second day of the Spring Festival holiday, Ye Wangyong, head of a Chinese youth federation in Brazil, flew to Sao Paulo and ordered 100,000 masks, 10,000 protective suits and 10,000 pairs of protective goggles.
"People helped us transport these medical materials for free," Ye says.
The China-Europe Economic and Cultural Development Research Center's president, Ke Haixiao, says:"Soon after we learned of the situation, we bought some medical supplies and sent them to Wuhan. And since we're now familiar with the transportation, more people have come to us to help deliver packages, so we split them into several teams."
The team in Spain, for instance, drove over 700 kilometers looking for a mask factory in the countryside.
"No delay is allowed in the fight against the virus," says Ke.
"We overseas Chinese are duty-bound to fight for our motherland."
Data from the Zhejiang Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese show that overseas Chinese and their relatives from Zhejiang alone had donated over 130 million yuan and medical materials worth 60 million yuan as of Sunday.
Zhu Shenghua, a Wenzhou businesswoman in Rome, even appeared on a local television program to introduce China's epidemic-control and -prevention measures to local residents.
"Whether it's a donation, a package or even advice, we overseas Chinese want to do our share for our home country," says Zhu.
