When China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology put on a forum on Chinese medical equipment development and applications, in Beijing, on Aug 31, they signed a cooperation agreement on an innovative development strategy to make China a strong, independent, innovative manufacturer of medical equipment.

 Hosting the forum was the Commission’s Li Bin, with Miao Wei, the Industry and Information Technology minister, taking part. They explained that promoting China’s medical equipment and applications is in line with the central government’s ideas on a ‘Made in China’ strategy for economic growth and industry improvements.

 Li made a point of saying that the Commission-Ministry deal was based on an in-depth study and research on domestic medical equipment, and lengthy negotiations and is a powerful way to develop health and family planning and that it is important for both parties cooperate and communicate and coordinate industry-university-research work and solve problems in domestic medical equipment applications immediately.

Li said the Commission really needs to carry out the deal in the following ways: 1. Insist on system innovation and top-level design, improve coordination and innovation through cooperation. 2. Insist on scientific innovation and equipment improvements to increase competitive ability, get medical institutes to take part in equipment R&D, innovation and applications, through a cyclical process. 3. Be problem oriented and remove any obstacles to development and study every industry-university-research-application link and find ways to establish or improve incentives so that medical institutes use Chinese equipment. 4. Maintain an international vision and promote Chinese equipment outside, with the government being the driving force while enterprises take the lead, take advantage of the Made-in-China approach, continue to expand the international market, and promote technology, industry and capital exports. 5. Work hard on implementing the cooperation agreement.

Miao explained that the medical equipment industry is capital and technology intensive and covers many areas but is still a sunrise industry, but one with great prospects and that domestic medical equipment development should revolve around health and family planning needs and promoting the Made in China label and that there should be an entire industrial chain in place. Miao asked everyone involved to focus on innovation and applications, with the innovation chain combining the Ministry’s upstream and downstream resources, supporting major enterprises, and making breakthroughs in medical equipment and parts and software. The application chain, he said, should combine the work, policies and Commission methods to get domestic medical equipment to influential hospitals to test applications and build domestic medical equipment industrialization demonstration sites. He emphasized the need for personnel to increase cooperation and communications with regional governments, study good regional practices, come up with pilot methods, and choose some provinces for pilot programs.

The forum organizers asked everyone involved to increase communications and coordination with other departments, follow support policies for domestic equipment development, and create a good environment where the public care about developing China’s medical equipment industry.

Signing the agreement were Sun Zhigang, a Commission vice minister, and Xin Guobin, a vice-Industry and Information Technology minister, with other officials witnessing the deal.