Staff transport the aid materials from China at the airport in Male, the Maldives, March 27, 2020. The Maldives has received its first shipment of aid, including much needed epidemic prevention materials, from China to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Li Xiang/Xinhua)

A number of Chinese companies are allocating their manpower and resources to help the Maldives promptly build temporary quarantine hospitals amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Chinese Ambassador to the Maldives Zhang Lizhong. 

The Chinese companies are responding to the island nation's request and have kickstarted a "race against time," Zhang tweeted on Monday. 

State-owned construction giant China State Construction Engineering Corp has decided to send over 100 workers, along with equipment and materials, to build a quarantine hospital that can house a maximum of 800 people, according to Ambassador Zhang's tweet. 

Another state-owned construction firm, Beijing Urban Construction Group (BUCG), is renovating a site at Hulumale into a temporary quarantine facility with a capacity of 327 beds. To accomplish this, BUCG will arrange a task force of 40 workers. 

Chinese companies have built many infrastructure projects in recent years in the island nation, including a massive bridge which is the first cross-sea bridge in the Indian Ocean. 

Experts said the move highlighted the role of Chinese companies participating in the Belt and Road Initiative in the global anti-pandemic fight. 

The pandemic is escalating in South Asia, with a notable increase in the number of confirmed cases in India.

The Maldives has had 214 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and zero deaths as of press time Monday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

India, the Maldives big neighbor, has 27,977 cases with 884 deaths as of Monday.

"Despite the figures the Maldives has, the urgency there is no less severe than in other parts of the world when you consider a population of 440,000 crowd into a total land area of just 298 square kilometers, or about 1/20th of Beijing's urban area," Zhou Rong, a senior research fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Monday. "Contributing to the local disease control and prevention efforts also boosts the safety of staff of Chinese companies."

The Maldives received its first shipment of aid from China in late March, including much-needed medical protective masks, surgical masks, gloves, stethoscopes, goggles and protective suits.

The decision by Chinese companies to build quarantine hospitals came as China intensified pandemic relief measures in South Asia, a region with 1.8 billion people and a deep bond with China. 

More aid supplies arrived in Pakistan on Monday and China Communications Construction Co donated medical supplies to Sri Lanka earlier in April.

"China is willing to help all the developing nations in the region that requested China's help to contain the pandemic, as the safety of the region also affects China's own safety," Zhou said.