Imports and Exports of Chinese Medical Instruments Were Increased against the International Financial Crisis
www.shcri.com -- In the first quarter of 2009, the total import and export values in China were cut down by 24.9%, including 19.75 down in the export amounts and 30.9% down in the import amounts. In the first quarter of 2009, the exports of Chinese medical instruments were increased by 9.62% year on year against the circumstances of the depressed macro-economic environment, the exports amounting to 2.412 billion USD and accounting for 34.56% of the total export amounts in Chinese medical industry. The diagnostic and treatment instruments, as the important medical instruments in hospitals, continued the fast growth tendency in 2008 and the export amounts reached 815 million USD in the first quarter of 2009, up by 10.3% year on year. The traditional advantageous products, such as the medical dressing and disposable products, also kept the 10% growth. The export amounts of the oral and dental instruments and materials were fewer, but showed the fast growth tendency of 27.63%.
Under the background of international financial crisis, the diagnostic and treatment instruments, as the uppermost export products in Chinese medical instrument industry, had kept two digital growths in the exports in 2008. The total imports and exports of the medical instruments in China reached 16.28 billion USD, up by 28.21% year on year, in which the export amounts were 11.067 billion USD, up by 31.46% and the import amounts were 5.216 billion USD, up by 21.81%, 5.851 billion USD of trade surplus, extended by 1.718 billion USD compared with the same period of previous years.
Generally speaking, the medical products belong to the inelasticity consumption products, less affected by the macro-economy situation. In the developed countries especially in European Union, the medical costs are paid by the state finance or social commercial insurance. The influences of international financial crisis on them are lagging. Therefore, the demands for Chinese diagnostic and treatment instruments in the global market remain strong.
Besides, the financial crisis also brings unexpected opportunities for Chinese medical instrument industry. In the 4-trillion-Yuan investments for expanding the domestic demands issued by Chinese government, near tens of billions of Yuan are specially used to perfect the medical conditions in the rural, which means the domestic medical instruments will enter the rural market where were not involved before. Also, the financial crisis makes the European and American equipment buyers have to choose Chinese medical instruments, which are low in price and good in quality.
In 2008, there were 21,300 enterprises in China operating the exports of the medical instruments, and only eight of them exceeded the export amounts of hundred million US dollars, accounting for 0.04%, four companies more compared with 2007, five of which were joint ventures or wholly funded enterprises. There were 161 enterprises exceeding the export amounts of tens of millions of US dollars, accounting for 0.76%, 33 companies more compared with 2007. There were total 1,529 enterprises with the export amounts exceeding the millions of US dollars, accounting for 7.22%, newly added 320 enterprises compared with 2007. Near 92% enterprises were below the export amounts of millions of US dollars, which means that Chinese medical instrument operation enterprises are small and sparsely distributed, the general scale of Chinese medical instrument industry is in the starting stage.
At present, most medical organizations in Chinese rural areas are short of the fundamental medical instruments and over 70% health centers in the towns need constructing. There are huge demands for the medical instruments in these areas.
In the end of 2008, GE, the international medical instrument production giant, announced that it would set up the Sino-Foreign joint ventures through GE China Company and Shandong Xinhua Medical Instrument Co., Ltd, which would be engaged in providing more and high quality universal medical scientific products for China and the global basic medical market. GE also announced that it would invest more in Chinese rural medical market and 5 new variety rural medical products will be released in 2010.
As a matter of fact, many multinational medical instrument production giants tried to enter Chinese medium and low-end medical instrument market. In June 2006, Philips had jointly established a medical equipment research and production organization with Neusoft Corporation, mainly aiming at Chinese local market. Carestream Health launched the digital diagnostic and treatment instrument exhibition in the rural areas all over the country from 2006 through integrating the medical instruments and solution plans in the new rural areas and communities. Siemens and Philips, the production giants of the radiography equipments, had started to extend towards the downstream products.
Source: China Research and Intelligence
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Based on the database, Interviews and research methods from China Research and Intelligence, CRI analyzes the development and opportunities in this industry clearly.