China’s medical exports fall 26.1% YoY in first half of 2023

China’s medical exports fell 26.1% year-on-year in the first half of 2023, dragged down by weaker demand amid a sluggish global economic recovery and a high base for comparison.

In the first six months, China exported $52 billion worth of medicine and medical equipment, according to data compiled by the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products, a state-backed business group.

Exports of Western medicine fell 23.4% year-on-year in the period, while shipments of traditional Chinese medicine grew 3.6%, though their value accounted for less than 6% of total medical exports, the data shows. Shipments of medical equipment, a category that includes devices like pacemakers and supplies like surgical masks, plunged 31.5%.

“Softening external demand is still directly affecting China’s medical exports,” the chamber said in an analysis pointing, among other factors, to a drop in exports of Covid supplies such as vaccines and testing reagents.

The chamber expects China’s medical exports to continue to fall on a year-on-year basis in the second half of the year, although the rate of decline will ease. It forecasts that the total value of Chinese medical exports for the full year will fall 15% from 2022 as the industry comes down from a pandemic-induced high.

In terms of destinations, China’s medical exports to major markets, including the European Union and the U.S., declined year-on-year by value in the first half of 2023, but exports to Russia grew 8.6%, driven by a rise in shipments of medical equipment.

Still, China’s northern neighbor isn’t an especially big buyer of Chinese medical exports — in the first half, it accounted for less than 3% of the total by value. Nikkei Asia