China calls for greater use of homegrown medical devices

China may use incentives to encourage domestic hospitals to use Chinese-made medical devices as it looks to stimulate the local market and reduce soaring healthcare costs, a potential threat to the global firms who currently dominate the sector. China will speed up the development of its medical device industry and promote wider use of local products to "effectively control unreasonable increases in the cost of medical care and reduce the burden on patients," the country's health ministry said in a statement posted on its website on Monday. The overt backing by Beijing for homegrown medical devices will raise protectionism concerns and is a headache for the global companies attracted to China by annual growth rates McKinsey & Co expect at around 20 percent over the next few years. Global medical device makers, especially from the United States, Europe and Japan, now dominate around three-quarters of China's medical device market, which was worth 212 billion yuan ($34.51 billion) last year, according to figures from the Hong Kong Trade and Development Council (HKTDC).

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