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Funding Support for the Setting Up of Local Medical Face Mask Testing Facilities

The HKCTC Secretariat has recently received enquiries on whether there is available funding for the setting up of local testing facilities to support medical face mask testing. In this connection, it is noted that the Hong Kong Accreditation Service has recently introduced a new accreditation service for medical face mask testing under the Hong Kong Laboratory Accreditation Scheme (HOKLAS).

We understand that some laboratories currently engaged in consumer product testing and having the capability of providing accredited services of microbiological test, flammability test, physical test, etc., may already be providing certain testing services related to medical face masks, but the scope and service level may be limited. These laboratories may be interested in purchasing equipment to set up full-fledged local testing services specifically related to performance evaluation of medical face masks or materials used in meeting the required international or regional standards.

If your laboratory has already possessed the above capability, you may wish to apply for funding support under the Technology Voucher Programme (TVP) for setting up local testing facilities for performance evaluation of medical face masks or materials used.

To facilitate the setting up of such testing facilities as early as possible in the fight against the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), the TVP Secretariat would accord priority to the processing of such funding applications. While under TVP, the costs of off-the-shelf/ readily available equipment/hardware/software/services or solutions should in general constitute no more than 50% of the total project cost, this “50% rule” would be relaxed to 100%, for the setting up of testing facilities for performance evaluation of medical face masks or materials used, on the understanding that the equipment concerned is basically off-the-shelf and readily available in the market. But in calculating the amount of TVP funding, the cost of such items should be taken as 50% of the total project cost.

More information regarding TVP is available here. For enquiries, please contact the TVP Secretariat by phone at 3523 1170 or by email at tvp-enquiry@itc.gov.hk.

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