Value of medical equipment exports from China 2018-2022

Between January and November 2022, China exported around 444 billion yuan worths of medical equipment. The export of medical equipment surged in 2020, thanks to the high demand of medical consumables during the coronavirus pandemic. The United States, Japan, and Germany were the leading export markets for China's medical equipment in 2022.

Changing Chinese regulations - a domestic market boom?

The medical technology market in China is difficult for overseas manufacturers to penetrate, due to the ever-changing market requirements and regulations, which must be observed to in order to have an impact on the industry. The familiarity of these regulations and improved accessibility for domestic manufacturers has proliferated the growth of local manufacturers of high-end medical technology. Low-end medical technology is still the primary market for local manufacturers and recent developments have allowed local producers to compete with overseas manufacturers. However, imported high-end technology is still preferred over locally produced technologies.

State of exports before the COVID-19 pandemic

The year 2016 witnessed the election of Donald Trump as the President of the United States. The ensuing trade war between the U.S. and China resulted in a drastic fall of exports from China to its major consumers. Nevertheless, the medical technology industry has since registered significant growth in exports across the world. The most prominent manufactured entity were medical apparatus, which included both high-end and low-end medical technology, accounting for approximately half of the medical export revenue before 2020. Rehabilitation and diagnostic equipment also constituted a large share of the export revenue of China’s medtech.