More than 400 Chinese and overseas businesses gathered in a vast Beijing exhibition hall Monday to compete for a share of more than two billion yuan (about 240 million US dollars), the amount the Chinese government has allocated to buy medical equipment in 2004.

Nine expert teams organized by the Ministry of Health will evaluate the equipment, said Huang Jiefu, China's vice minister of health, at the opening ceremony of the 13th China International Medical Equipment and Facilities Exposition and Symposia (China-HOSPEC).

The Health Ministry announced earlier that the central government would spend 1.5 billion yuan (approximately 181 million US dollars) this year on ambulances, in-car equipment, and devices for testing and treating infectious diseases.

Another 573 million yuan (some 70 million US dollars) will be used to buy overalls for medical personnel, emergency rescue equipment, laboratory devices for provincial and municipal disease control centers, vehicles with special purposes and testing machines for AIDS and schistosomiasis (commonly known as snail fever).

"With the continuous growth of China's economy and the public's increased attention on healthcare, the potential healthcare market in China is huge and fast growing," said Aris Bruin, chief operation officer of Philips Medical Systems in China.

China has become the third largest healthcare market in the world, behind the United States and Japan. "In the next three years, the annual growth rate of China's healthcare market is expected to exceed 10 percent," Bruin said.

In 2003, the Health Ministry spent more than 800 million yuan (about 96.4 million US dollars).

Sources with the Health Ministry noted that items to be purchased this year would include computerized tomography (CT) machines, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, X-ray machines, clinical devices, ambulances, PET-CT machines and high-value consumable materials.

Source: Xinhua