Concern as China pushes use of domestic medical devices

There are concerns that China’s decision to encourage domestic hospitals to use Chinese-made medical devices will affect business of global companies currently attracted to China due to its current growth rates.

Companies such as Siemens AG, Johnson & Johnson, Philips NV and Medtronic have already shown an interest in China’s fast-growing medical devices market.

According to Reuters, China may use incentives to encourage domestic hospitals to use Chinese-made medical devices. It is thought that the move will stimulate the local market and reduce soaring healthcare costs causing potential harm to the global firms who currently dominate the sector.

China’s ministry of health issued a statement via its website which explained that it would promote the use of Chinese products to "effectively control unreasonable increases in the cost of medical care and reduce the burden on patients”.

The statement quoted Li Bin, head of China’s national health and family planning commission who said: "We want to strongly advocate health ministry organisations to use domestically-made medical devices, especially pushing top level class III hospitals to use domestically-made products".

Reuters added that in the same statement, Miao Wei, the head of China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), said China needed to raise the level and quality of its homegrown medical devices and create incentives for medical institutions to use locally-made products.