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The Chinese market of Medical devices Live an accelerated expansion. According to a report published by Cambridge Networkit is expected to reach a value of 210,000 million dollars in 2025, promoted by a combination of internal factors and political ambition. The aging of the population and a state commitment determined by innovation have turned this sector into a national priority for Beijing.
The strategy is clear: to bet on leading technologies and reduce the dependence of the foreigner. Investments have concentrated in fields such as artificial intelligence (AI) for image diagnosis, devices connected by IoT, robotic surgery or the use of advanced materials. All this under the umbrella of the program ‘Made in China 2025‘, which establishes precise objectives of national production in key areas of health.
In that framework, China seeks In 2025 at least 70 % of high -end medical devices used in hospitals are local manufacturing. In strategic components, the objective rises to 85 %. And in the case of regional level hospitals, some guidelines already demanded to reach 50 % of Chinese products in 2020.
According to Bloombergthis turn has had an immediate effect on trade. The European Commission states that China went from having a deficit of 1,300 million euros in medical devices in 2019 to a surplus of 5,200 million just a year later.
EU’s response
On Monday, June 2, the Member States of the European Union supported the commission’s proposal for RStringing access of Chinese manufacturers to public contracts of medical devices valued at more than five million euros, as Reuters saidBloombergand SCMPciting diplomatic sources and people familiar with the matter. It should be noted that the commission has not yet made the official resolution public.
The measure is based on a legislation approved in 2022: the international public procurement instrument or IPI (for its acronym in English). This instrument allows Brussels to impose penalties to companies from countries where a lack of reciprocity has been tested. The sanctions can range from adjustments in the bidding scores to the direct exclusion of public competitions.
According to the aforementioned Hongkonese newspaperthe measure could be applied in Question of weeksonce receives the final approval of the European commissioners. The current draft raises a duration of up to five years for these restrictions, although for now the final text has not been published. According to IPI standards, the measures must be proportional and allow exceptions case by case, at the request of the affected companies.
The decision dates back to an investigation launched by the European Commission in April 2024. After a period of consultations without agreement, Brussels published in January 2025 a conclusive report: 87 % of public tenders analyzed in China contained explicit or implicit restrictions to foreign devices. In many cases, technical criteria were required that could only comply with local suppliers, or there were low prices that were unfeasible for business -oriented companies.
The most affected sectors were the devices for otolaryngology (ENT), the general diagnosis and the diagnostic image. The commission also detected direct prohibitions to imported products in a growing number of competitions between 2022 and 2024.
According to Bloomberg and Reuters, China did not propose any corrective measure during the consultation process. Brussels argues that the lack of access just to the Chinese market, combined with the privileges enjoyed by Chinese companies in Europe, justifies the activation of the IPI.
Images | Arseny Togulev | Marcel Scholte | Arthur Wang
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