Employees are busy at work in a manufacturing plant of Mlily in Rugao. [Photo/ntfabu.com]

Mlily, China's leading memory-foam manufacturer, based in Rugao, a county-level city in Nantong, announced on March 16 that it will donate 1,000 protective suits and 50,000 face masks to Serbia.

This is the first time Mlily has donated essential supplies overseas since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. As of Feb 26, the company had donated 17,270 mattresses, 200 pillows, and 688 protective suits for people on the frontlines of the epidemic fight across the country.

The first 140 mattresses were sent by air on Jan 26 to the construction site of Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, the city hardest hit by the epidemic in China.

However, the company's stock soon became exhausted and it resumed production on Jan 29, with hundreds of employees returning to work.

According to a spokesperson for the company, Mlily is now operating at nearly full capacity to produce mattresses for donation. Most of its workers have been working overtime for more than a month.

Serbian President Aleksander Vucic, the country's then premier, speaks at the opening ceremony for Mlily's manufacturing center in Serbia on June 28, 2015. [Photo/ntfabu.com]

Founded in 2003, Mlily has made a name for itself in the global memory-foam mattress industry. About 80 percent of its products are sold to 73 countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

The company established its European production center in Serbia in 2014. This was Mlily's first overseas manufacturing center, and covers an area of 140,000 square meters with an annual production capacity worth 900 million yuan ($128.43 million).

The spokesperson said the company also planned to donate memory-foam mattresses produced at the Serbian plant to local hospitals.