VietNamNet Bridge - Domestic medical supply and equipment manufacturers have found it difficult to sell their products in the home market, including large hospitals.

The annual revenue of the Vietnam medical equipment market is estimated at $800 million. The figure is expected to reach $1.2 billion by 2016. An 18 percent growth rate in 2012-2017 period is expected.

However, 90 percent of medical equipment available in the market are imports from the US, Japan, Germany and Japan. 

In 2013, Vietnam imported $385 million worth of medical equipment, while the figure rose to $407 million in 2014. 

The Ministry of Health wants domestically made equipment to account for 60 percent of total items by 2018. 

However, importers pointed out that Vietnam can only make simple products such as beds, nightstands, cotton, bandages, gauze and needles. 

Truong Hung, deputy chair of the HCM City Medical Equipment Association, warned that Chinese products have been increasing their presence in Vietnam. Though Chinese suppliers do not have big opportunities to win bids to provide equipment to hospitals, more and more Chinese machines have been sold through the border in the north.

Hung fears that Chinese companies are likely to relocate their medical equipment factories to Vietnam in the future.

The HCMC Medical Equipment Association’s members all complained at a seminar held in late August that domestic companies encountered barriers in selling domestic products to hospitals. 

The representative of a company that makes disposable medical equipment complained that the company’s products, though made with the high-quality input materials imported from Europe and the US, are always inferior to foreign-made products in the eyes of buyers or hospitals.

He heard that HCM City authorities are considering offering preferences to medical equipment manufacturers in terms of land access and tax. 

However, the preferences may not attract manufacturers once they cannot find who they will sell products to.

Meanwhile, an executive from the Viet Han Medical Equipment, noted that in many procurement projects, investors only accept import products, while refusing Vietnam-made products.

Danamenco, a medical equipment manufacturer based in Da Nang, complained that it won bids to provide equipment in Laos and Myanmar, but found it difficult to attend the bids in the home market.

Investors usually require a wide range of products which are out of reach of domestic manufacturers.

Sources said that the HCM City Health Care Department is going to open a bid for a procurement project worth VND130 billion. However, domestic manufacturers and import companies do not plan to attend the bid because of the department needs many kinds of of equipment.

TBKTSG