Owner of AbouThai hopes to open a face mask production line in Hong Kong with help from Li Ka Shing Foundation

The well-known “yellow” (pro-movement) business, AbouThai, obtains thousands of boxes of face masks from Thailand today, which attracted long queues. The business has reserved a portion of masks for Hospital Authority frontline health care workers and border control staff (including those from Customs Department, Immigration Department and the Department of Health). 

Shop owner, Mike Lam, had worked in customs before. He follows current affairs and politics closely, and has posted on social media on 11 June 2019 in support of the shopkeepers' strike the next day. "Since the beginning of January, when I saw how the epidemic was unravelling with the lack of supply of face masks among general public, I had already started to increase my inventory,” said Mike, in his interview with Hong Kong Citizen News.

"My company sells Thai products and Thailand also exports face masks. I hope that I can help Hong Kongers, particularly frontline health care workers and frontline workers at the borders. As an entrepreneur, I need to fulfill my social responsibility." He mentioned that at earlier on when supply was still adequate, he had provided masks to individual district council members to meet the needs of the community. But nowadays, it is much more difficult to secure a sufficient supply of masks. 

Mike said he normally gets his masks from different Thai suppliers. As the virus started to spread, “every supplier is now facing an increase in global demand. Many places around the world are experiencing a shortage surgical face masks for various reasons. I am queueing up as well. The fact that I managed to get hold of a large supply today is probably just luck,” he explained.

Mike knew about some low-income families in Hong Kong who have been washing their masks and reusing them. "I cannot accept that this is happening in a world-class city. This is worse than the third world. How can the government find this acceptable?” He is not certain when the next shipment of masks will come. "It is difficult to say. Even friends working in the disciplined services, in Hospital Authority and my family are all lacking face masks."

The 13 shops in the AbouThai chain were each given a quota of 300 boxes of masks (a total of 3,900 boxes for all 13 shops) this morning. Each person can purchase one box (50 each) at $49. There were long queues at every shop this morning. 

Having seen the shortage of face mask worsened, Mike was hoping that he could contact the Li Ka Shing Foundation to obtain funds or a loan to set up a factory for manufacturing face masks. "If I have $100 million, I can open up a production line immediately. I have estimated that the number of masks produced could meet the needs of 7 million citizens for two months, with an average production cost of $0.24 each. If so, everyone, regardless of their social class, can buy masks at a reasonable price to ensure health and safety."

He stressed that any prevention is a passive measure. “An active measure against the pandemic would be the government fully closing the borders,” he said. Is it too late? "It cannot wait. It needs to be done now. If you close the border just one second sooner, then it could prevent another person from getting infected.”

Source: Hong Kong Citizen News, January 29, 2020
https://bit.ly/3bkU1jd

#AbouThai #YellowEconomyCircle #Mask

#PoliticalSuppression
Pro-democracy Shop #AbouThai
Raided by #Customs in Hong Kong

Source: Apple Daily #Apr8

Read more
⬇️⬇️⬇️
https://t.me/guardiansofhongkong/29339

#PoliticalSuppression
Pro-democracy Shop #AbouThai
Raided by #Customs in Hong Kong

On April 8, 2021, Hong Kong Customs raided a pro-democracy 'yellow' retailer AbouThai with over 100 officers and seized goods worth almost HK$1 million. The authorities also arrested the responsible person in the branch.

Customs claimed that certain products from the shop did not have bilingual labels and insisted that the operation was not a suppression.

AbouThai was founded by #MikeLam, who is among the 47 pro-democracy figures charged under the National Security Law for joining the Primary Election of the pro-democracy camp in 2020.

Source: Apple Daily #Apr8
https://bit.ly/2OAJkTc

#AbouThai #MikeLam #YellowEconomy #HKCustoms

#YellowEconomy #Solidarity
Long Queues at #AbouThai for 3 Straight Days as Hongkongers Show Support After Customs Raid

On April 8, 2021, Hong Kong Customs raided pro-democracy 'yellow' retailer AbouThai with over 100 officers. The authorities have seized goods valued nearly $400,000HKD, and arrested a 33-year-old board member.

Customs claimed that the operation was not a suppression.

Read more:
https://t.me/guardiansofhongkong/29339.

AbouThai was founded by #MikeLam, who is one of the 47 pro-democracy figures charged with "conspiracy to subverting state powers" for joining the Primary Election of the pro-democracy camp in 2020.

In a show of disapproval against the authorities' action, Hongkongers called for a massive shopping spree at AbouThai shops. Long queues were seen at multiple locations for three straight days.

Watch video:
https://www.facebook.com/spendtohelp/posts/3854617311325832

On the afternoon of Sunday, April 11, 2021, nearly a hundred customers lined up outside AbouThai branch in Kornhill Plaza. The queues extended all the way to the back staircase of the shopping mall. The staff of AbouThai distributed bottles of water to the queuing customers as a token of appreciation.

Many customers bought snacks, face masks, and sanitizer. Many even brought their own trolleys, so that they can buy as much as they can.

On the contrary, a pro-China shop 360°, located in the same shopping mall, was empty.

Source: InMedia #Apr12

https://bit.ly/3d9yuwO
https://bit.ly/2RuzLq5