Workers wait to have their samples taken for coronavirus tests at
Quang Chau Industrial Park in Bac Giang Province, May 2021.
Photo by VnExpress/Hoang Phong. 

Covid-19 hotspot Bac Giang Province has allowed seven more businesses in its Quang Chau and Van Trung industrial parks to reopen starting this weekend. 

With this, the province’s industrial park management board has allowed nine businesses to reopen after being asked to close to prevent further spread of the novel coronavirus.

At the Van Trung Industrial Park, the businesses that have been reopened are: S-Connect BG Vina Company; Gigalane; and Jeil Tech. The firms reopening at the Quang Chau Industrial Park are: Fuyu Precision Technology; New Hope; Hope Special Zone; and Si Flex Vietnam.

The province has allowed these businesses to resume operations starting May 29 and 30.

Two other companies – Foxconn's suppliers Fuhong Precision Component and New Wing Interconnect Technology – had resumed operations on May 28.

The businesses are required to comply with all safety regulations regarding Covid-19; have dormitories for workers to stay in; arrangements for picking up and dropping of workers; and workers who have tested negative in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, with the most recent test done a day before returning to the factory.

The total number of employees expected to resume working is about 4,056 people. New Wing Interconnect Technology (1,294) and S-Connect BG Vina (660) are companies with have a large number of workers returning to work.

Bac Giang Chairman Le Anh Duong said that it was a very urgent task to bring industrial zones back into operation to avoid disruption of the supply chain from these enterprises.

The northern province, home to 13 Samsung suppliers and Apple partners Foxconn and Luxshare, is the most severely hit locality in Vietnam's latest Covid-19 wave, recording 2,074 cases as of Sunday noon.

It has had to shut down four local industrial parks –Van Trung, Quang Chau, Dinh Tram and Song Khe-Noi Hoang – starting May 18 after the province recorded a staggeringly high number of new coronavirus cases due to the parks' large scale and high number of workers. The province has around 240,000 people employed at its six industrial parks.