European Union member states have voted to restrict access to the procurement market for Chinese medical device manufacturers. Chinese firms will be blocked from EU tenders worth more than €5 million for a five-year period in what marks the first use of the EU's International Procurement Instrument (IPI). The measure could be implemented within weeks after the EU Commission gives its go-ahead. The vote added tension in the China-EU relationship ahead of a meeting last week between EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic and Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao on the margins of an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ministerial conference in Paris.
In January, a European Commission investigation concluded that there was “clear evidence of China limiting access by EU medical device producers to its government contracts in an unfair and discriminatory way”. According to the EU, Chinese medical device manufacturers have largely free access to public procurement tenders in the EU market, compared to the restrictions faced by European competitors in China. The EU probe singled out Beijing’s “Buy China” policies – particularly in the high-end segment of the medical device sector – as designed “to directly favor domestic medical devices to the detriment of imported ones”. It noted that the devices were among the 10 designated under the Made in China 2025 program, with targets for domestically produced products to account for half of all those used in county hospitals by 2020, 70% by 2025 and 90% by 2030. “Overall, the commission found that 87% of public procurement tenders contained explicit or implicit restrictions affecting the procurement of imported medical devices,” it said. The IPI was adopted in 2022 to crack open public procurement markets that are closed to European firms. It is one of a suite of tools created to deal with what the EU considers unfair trading practices by China, the South China Morning Post reports.
The Global Times adds that the China Chamber of Commerce to the EU (CCCEU) expressed profound disappointment over the EU member states’ reported approval of restrictive measures under the International Procurement Instrument (IPI), while urging the EU to reconsider the necessity and long-term implications. The IPI is a unilateral instrument targeting Chinese enterprises and contradicts the EU’s stated principles of openness, fairness and non-discrimination in market access, the Chamber said. The CCCEU emphasized that Chinese enterprises have consistently operated in compliance with laws and regulations, following principles of integrity and good faith. Their contributions to the EU – through investment, technological advancement, and job creation – are widely recognized and valued, the Chamber said.
