Buenos Aires Branch of Bank of China contributes 1500 protective suits to first batch of medical supplies donated to Argentina in March 2020 (Linked to Project ID#91387 and #93992)

On March 17, 2020 – at a meeting between the Chinese Ambassador to Argentina, Zou Xiaoli, and the President of Argentina, Alberto Fernández – the Chinese Embassy committed a batch of supplies to the Argentine Government to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The supplies were to be granted by a group of organizations consisting primarily of Chinese government institutions and state-owned enterprises. The entire batch included the following supplies: 5,000 sets of protective clothing, 66,000 N95 masks, 130,000 medical masks, 2,000 goggles, 5,000 isolation suits, 20,000 pairs of gloves, 2,500 reagents (tests), 550 hand-held forehead thermometers, and 3 sets of temperature monitoring equipment. The group of donors included the following organizations: the Hangzhou Municipal People's Government; the Xiaoshan District People's Government; the People's Government of Louta Town, (in the Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou Municipality); the China Shenzhen Mammoth Foundation; the BGI Group; the Chinese Embassy in Argentina; the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Argentina Branch; Bank of China, Buenos Aires Branch; COFCO Argentina Branch; China Communications Group, Argentina Branch; National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm); Huawei Argentina; Goldwind Technology, Argentina Branch; and the Argentina-China Trade and Investment Promotion Association. Each donor's contribution included different supplies and arrived on a different day. This project captures the contribution by the Buenos Aires Branch of the Bank of China, which included 1500 protective suits and was handed over to the Argentine Ministry of Health on March 19, 2020. At least some of these were Dupont brand Tyvek suits. Harvard's Mask Diplomacy Dataset estimated the donation's value at USD 22,500.

Additional details

1. AidData has estimated the transaction amount for this donation based on price catalogues from the World Health Organization (WHO). Please see the TUFF Methodology for additional details. 2. This project is linked to Project ID#91387, which itself links to the contributions of all other donors that contributed to the first batch of supplies committed on March 17, 2020. It is assumed that the donation of 1,500 suits by BoC Buenos Aires referenced in the Chinese Embassy's 3/19/2020 Tweet are the BoC's contribution to the first batch of supplies donated. This is given the timing, the recipient (Ministry of Health), and a reference to the supplies arriving as "part of" the COVID aid following a meeting between the Chinese Ambassador to Argentina and the President of Argentina. This meeting (March 17), was when the commitment for the first batch of supplies was made. 3. It is assumed that the 1500 suits that are considered part of this donation, along with those donated by ICBC Argentina (captured via project #93425) are the suits referenced by the phrase "套防护服", which is translated as "protective clothing" or "protective suits." This is distinct from the articles donated by the Xiaoshan District Government and COFCO Argentina (see projects #93456 and #93455), which are assumed to be "件隔离服," translated as "isolation suits." 件隔离服 is listed as a separate type of medical supply in the Chinese Embassy source published on March 18. It is also possible that these suit donations included a mixture of 件隔离服 and 套防护服. This issue warrants further investigation; however, Harvard's Mask Diplomacy dataset estimates the cost of both 件隔离服 and 套防护服 to be USD 15 per suit, and thus transaction amounts are unaffected for this project, as well as projects #93425 and #93455. 4. Part of Bank of China's contribution may have gone to the Federal Police of Argentina in addition to Argentina's Ministry of Health (see Project ID#93992). However, there is insufficient evidence to add Federal Police of Argentina as a recipient on Project ID#93427.

Number of official sources

4

Number of total sources

7