“State-owned Bay Zoltán Applied Research Public Benefit Non-profit Limited has put a new face mask production machine into commission in Budapest”, the Ministry for Innovation and Technology’s Parliamentary State Secretary announced at a press conference held at the company’s facility on Wednesday.

Tamás Schanda emphasised: “The global pandemic has shown that, in the interests of reducing our dependency on market stakeholders, it is worth arranging for as many pieces of protective equipment as possible to be manufactured at home; this aspiration is being facilitated by the new machine”.

The politician said that in his opinion Hungary has won the first battle against the coronavirus, and Hungary’s protection efforts are among the most successful in Europe.

“This required that the Cabinet have the opportunity to make decisions and introduce measures as rapidly as possible, thanks to the extraordinary mandate”, he added.

“If it had depended on the Left, this would not have become possible, in view of the fact that they did not vote in favour of the relative piece of legislation in Parliament”, he noted.

“In addition, the fact that Hungarian enterprises, institutions and researchers also joined the solidarity, and the science world launched studies and development projects, also contributed to successful protection”, he continued.

“State-owned Bay Zoltán Applied Research Ltd. is also taking part in these efforts with its mask production machine”, Mr. Schanda stated.
The State Secretary also spoke about the fact that this is not the only project that is receiving government funding within the spirit of protecting against the epidemic.

“For instance, the government is assisting the development of respirators at the Budapest University of Technology, the development of other respiration support devices is being performed in cooperation between the Semmelweis University and the University of Óbuda, and funding is being provided towards research at the University of Szeged, within the framework of which the spread of the virus in Hungary is being modelled by mathematicians. Parallel to all this, the pharmaceutical industry is also working on development projects”, the politician added.

The Ministry for Innovation and Technology’s Deputy State Secretary for Innovation Tibor Gulyás said that in his opinion: “The recent period has proven that significant results can be achieved in the fight against the epidemic with the help of innovation”.

“This is also thanks to the fact that the Ministry provided the resources required for the utilization of knowledge capital, and for increasing the effectiveness of prevention and healing, as rapidly as possible”, he added.
“The continuation of this work is particularly important in view of the fact that it is providing us with the opportunity to establish new capacities to further assist protection prior to a possible second wave of the epidemic”, he stated.

The company’s Managing Director Norbert Grasselli said: “The new machine is capable of producing 60 FFP2-type, five-layer face masks-a-minute”.
“We currently have available the raw materials for the production of 400-500 thousand face masks, but the shipment of these materials is occurring continuously”, the Managing Director told reporters.

(Ministry for Innovation and Technology / MTI)