More than 400 Chinese and overseas businesses gathered in
Beijing Monday to compete for a share of a central government
procurement order for medical equipment worth more than 2 billion
yuan (US$240 million).
Nine teams organized by the Ministry of Health will evaluate the
equipment, said Health Vice Minister Huang Jiefu at the opening
ceremony of the 13th China International Medical Equipment and
Facilities Exposition and Symposia at the Beijing Exhibition
Hall.
The Ministry of Health announced earlier that the central
government would spend 1.5 billion yuan (US$181 million) this year
on ambulances, in-car equipment and devices for testing and
treating infectious diseases.
Another 573 million yuan (US$70 million) will be used to buy
protective clothing for medical personnel, emergency rescue
equipment, laboratory devices for provincial and municipal disease
control centers, special-purpose vehicles with and testing machines
for AIDS and schistosomiasis (snail fever).
"With the continuous growth of the economy and the public's
increased attention to healthcare, China's potential healthcare
market is huge and fast-growing," said Aris Bruin, chief operating
officer of Philips Medical Systems in China. "In the next three
years, the annual growth rate of China's healthcare market is
expected to exceed 10 per cent."
The country has already become the third-largest healthcare
market in the world, behind the United States and Japan.
In 2003, the Ministry of Health spent about 800 million yuan
(US$96.4 million) purchasing medical equipment.
Items to be acquired this year are to include computerized
tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging, PET-CT and X-ray
machines, as well as clinical devices and ambulances.
(Xinhua News Agency August 10, 2004)