China releases development plan for medical equipment industry

BEIJING — China unveiled a development plan for the medical equipment sector during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) on Dec 28, as part of efforts to bolster public health.

The country aims to accelerate the integration of information technology into the medical equipment industry by 2025, creating medical robots and digital health platforms, according to the plan.

The plan, jointly released by 10 government departments, also details measures to develop medical equipment to support community-based elderly care, actively responding to the national strategy for population aging.

China's medical equipment sector witnessed robust growth in the past five years, with the market scale reaching 840 billion yuan (about $131.81 billion) in 2020.