Xiaoshan District Government contributes to first batch of medical supplies donated to Argentina in March 2020 (linked to #91387)

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: 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 Construction, Argentina Branch; National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm); Huawei Argentina; Goldwind Technology, Argentina Branch; and the Argentina-China Trade and Investment Promotion Association. The materials granted by each donor arrived on different dates. On March 27, 2020, the materials donated by the Hangzhou Municipal Government, the Xiaoshan District Government, and the Louta Town Government arrived in Buenos Aires and were handed over to officials from the Argentine Ministry of Health. The Chinese Embassy in Argentina reported that these three donors provided the "main part" of the supplies included in the first batch. The Chinese Embassy indicated that multiple shipments were used to transfer this part of the donation. More specifically, the Xiaoshan District Government likely provided 60,000 medical masks, 1754 isolation suits, 100 thermometers, and 1500 gloves, per reporting from a draft resolution from Argentina's National Chamber of Deputies. However, it is also possible that the Xiaoshan District Government's portion of the donation was included in Hangzhou Municipal Government's portion of the donation, which included 50,000 N95 masks, 105,000 medical masks, 2000 goggles, and 1000 testing kits.

Additional details

1. It is possible that the donation amount attributed to Hangzhou in La Nación's reporting/per the information request from the Ministry of Health includes the amount of supplies donated by the Xiaoshan District Government in Hangzhou and the Louta Town Government. One piece of evidence to suggest this is that the number of masks said to be donated by Hangzhou (50,000 K95 + 105,000 surgical) and Xiaoshan (60,000 of an unspecified type, likely surgical) exceeds the total in the first batch. Further, there is significant ambiguity regarding the timeline – Xiaoshan's donation is reported on as if it hasn't arrived yet after the donation is said to have arrived in Chinese official sources. The National Chamber of Deputies draft resolution speaks about a plane sent to China on April 17, 2020 in the past tense, but the donation from Xiaoshan in the future (it "will arrive"). On the other hand, the donation portion attributed to Xiaoshan reportedly includes thermometers, which are not included in reports about Hangzhou's donation, but are in Xiaoshan's. For the time being, AidData assumes that, at the very least, all surgical masks from the first batch of supplies were donated by either the Xiaoshan District in Hangzhou, or the Hangzhou Municipality as a whole. However, this issue warrants further investigation. 2. It is assumed that the 1754 suits that are considered part of this donation are the suits referenced by the phrase "件隔离服", which is translated as "isolation suits". This is distinct from the articles donated by ICBC Argentina (see project #93425), which are called "件隔离服" in another Chinese-language source, and is listed as a separate type of medical supply in the original Chinese Embassy source published on March 18. The suits in the donation from Xiaoshan are assumed to be 件隔离服 given that ICBC Argentina donated 3,500 suits, and 1754 + 3500 would exceed the total number of 套防护服 donated (5000). It is also possible that Xiaoshan donated a mixture of 件隔离服 and 件隔离服 suits, or did not make this donation at all and is included in the Hangzhou numbers. This issue warrants further investigation. 3. 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. 4. Xiaoshan is a district of Hangzhou and contains the town of Louta. 5. 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.

Number of official sources

5

Number of total sources

9