"Medical Reform" enhances the market potential of low-end medical equipment

　According to an authoritative survey report, about 15% of the medical instruments and equipment owned by 175,000 medical and health institutions nationwide are products around the 1970s, and 60% are products before the mid-1980s. This also indicates that they need to be updated, and in this process, will ensure the rapid growth of China's medical device market in the next 10 years or even longer.

　　my country currently has 13,000 hospitals at or above the county level, 52,000 township (town) health centers, and more than 3 million hospital beds. If 13,000 hospitals at or above the county level in the country can basically meet Japan's 1980 hospital medical equipment standards (800,000 yuan per 100 beds), then my country's medical equipment market will have an incremental space of more than 24 billion yuan.

　　At present, my country's primary public health service network is far from medical equipment. Many township hospitals do not even have general testing equipment. They still rely on stethoscopes, sphygmomanometers and injection needles as the main equipment for disease prevention and treatment.

　　According to the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan", in 2007, the coverage of the "New Rural Cooperative Medical System" pilot program will be expanded to 60% of the total number of counties (cities, districts) nationwide. It will be basically implemented nationwide in 2008, and the goal of basically covering rural residents will be achieved in 2010 . In terms of per capita health and medical expenses, in 2004 it was 1,261 yuan in urban areas and 301 yuan in rural areas.

　　If the rural population takes 5, 10, and 15 years to reach the level of urban per capita health and medical expenses in 2004, the rural per capita health and medical expenses will increase by 33%, 15%, and 10% annually. This will constitute a major benefit for domestic low-end branded medical device companies.

　　According to statistics, the market size of low-end medical equipment accounts for about 75% of the overall market size, which is much higher than the global level of 45%. An engineer in the field of medical equipment introduced that in the future, the functions of medical equipment in my country should extend from simple diagnosis, treatment and testing to multi-functional aspects such as diagnosis, treatment, inspection, analysis, and rehabilitation.