According to statistics from the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products, China's medical device import and export volume reached $41.09 billion in the first half of 2025, representing a year-on-year increase of 1.1%. Export value stood at $24.10 billion, up 5.0% year-on-year, while import value reached $16.99 billion, down 3.9% year-on-year. The first half achieved a trade surplus of $7.11 billion.
**Sustained Export Growth with Stable External Demand**
From monthly export data, China's medical device exports maintained growth momentum throughout the first half of 2025, except for February which was significantly affected by holiday factors. This trajectory indicates that the industry's external demand fundamentals remain solid overall.
Notably, continued U.S. tariff increases have disrupted global supply chains, with exports to the U.S. showing negative growth in April, May, and June, particularly significant declines in April and May. Although exports to the U.S. rebounded month-on-month in June after the tariff policy was suspended in May, exports to the U.S. totaled $5.167 billion in the first half, still declining 4.41% year-on-year. In sharp contrast, non-U.S. markets generally showed strong demand.
**Continued Optimization and Upgrading of Export Structure**
Among major subcategories in the first half of 2025, all four major categories achieved significant growth except for healthcare and rehabilitation products, which saw a slight decline in exports.
Hospital diagnostic and treatment products recorded export value of $11.23 billion in the first half, up 8.2% year-on-year. High-tech products including therapeutic respiratory equipment, endoscopes, artificial joints, MRI devices, scintillation imaging equipment, artificial kidneys, invasive ventilators, other artificial implants, and surgical robots achieved substantial export growth.
Overall, with improvements in China's medical technology and manufacturing capabilities, products continue to penetrate global markets with their excellent cost-performance ratio and are transitioning toward technology-intensive sectors, thereby enhancing the industry's international competitiveness.
Disposable consumables exports reached $5.27 billion, up 8.0% year-on-year, with notable growth in rubber gloves, vascular stents, and other human body supports.
Healthcare and rehabilitation products saw export volume increase 9.7% year-on-year in the first half, but average export prices fell 10.2% year-on-year, resulting in export value of $4.68 billion, down 1.5% year-on-year. Massage equipment, as a non-medical essential product, was significantly affected by U.S. tariff increases, forcing companies to adopt volume-for-price export strategies, with export prices declining 6.0% year-on-year and export volume dropping slightly 0.2%, resulting in export value of $2.11 billion, down 6.2% year-on-year, becoming the largest drag on healthcare and rehabilitation product exports.
Medical dressing products achieved export value of $2.02 billion, up 5.6% year-on-year. High-end medical dressings and compression stockings showed particularly strong export growth, maintaining high growth in exports to European and American markets.
Dental equipment and materials continued significant growth momentum in the first half, with export value reaching $900 million, up 9.6% year-on-year (due to HS code scope adjustments, year-on-year data calculated based on 2025 new code scope). From a volume-price perspective, export volume increased 8.9% year-on-year and average export prices rose 0.7% year-on-year, achieving both volume and price growth. Dental instruments, dentures, and dental X-ray application equipment achieved substantial export value growth.
**Diversified Market Layout and Accelerated Construction of Product Value Barriers**
In the first half of 2025, China's medical device exports continued the Europe-America-Japan dominated pattern, with exports to the top ten partner countries accounting for over 50% of total global trade. The United States remained in first place with $5.167 billion (21.44% of total exports), but affected by intensified China-U.S. trade friction, exports to the U.S. declined 4.41% year-on-year, with market share contracting 2.26 percentage points compared to the same period in 2024.
Meanwhile, technology-intensive categories achieved breakthrough against the trend: supported by domestic independent innovation, high-value-added products such as surgical precision instruments, new-generation catheters, and high-end dressings showed significant export growth to the U.S., with similar products expanding synchronously in developed markets like Germany and the UK with strict certification barriers, marking substantial breakthrough of domestic devices through developed countries' technical access barriers.
Combined with steady growth in emerging markets, "technological breakthrough and market diversification" has become the core driving force for Chinese medical devices going global.
In the first half of 2025, China's medical device exports to the EU reached $4.71 billion, up 11.2% year-on-year, significantly higher than the overall medical device export growth rate. Among the EU's top ten trading partners, China achieved positive export growth to nine countries except the Netherlands, with Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, Greece, Denmark and other markets showing year-on-year growth exceeding 10%, highlighting good EU demand recovery and continued deepening market penetration.
Notably, high-end medical equipment became a new growth driver, with scintillation imaging equipment including PET devices showing 15-fold export growth to the EU, while other mass spectrometers and surgical robots also doubled their exports to the EU, with technological upgrades driving continued breakthrough of Chinese devices in European high-end markets.
While traditional markets outside the U.S. maintained steady growth, China's medical device industry is accelerating layout in emerging regions. Benefiting from medical demand upgrades in emerging markets and deepened cooperation with Belt and Road Initiative countries, domestic medical devices' penetration rate continues to improve in ASEAN, Latin America, Middle East, Central Asia and other markets, with increasingly diversified export markets.
In the first half of 2025, China's medical device exports to the ten ASEAN countries totaled $2.60 billion, up 1.8% year-on-year. Exports to Vietnam reached $500 million, up 4.5% year-on-year; to Thailand $490 million, up 16.6% year-on-year; to the Philippines $420 million, up 8.7% year-on-year; to Singapore $420 million, down 8.8% year-on-year; to Malaysia $390 million, down 7.5% year-on-year; to Indonesia $320 million, up 3.0% year-on-year.
In the first half of 2025, China's medical device exports to Latin America reached $2.02 billion, up 13.8% year-on-year. Exports to Brazil reached $540 million, up 13.9% year-on-year; to Mexico $330 million, down 1.8% year-on-year; while Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Argentina all achieved double-digit export growth.
In the first half of 2025, China's medical device exports to the Middle East totaled $950 million, up 7.3% year-on-year. Exports to Saudi Arabia reached $260 million, up 13.9% year-on-year; to the UAE $230 million, up 2.4% year-on-year; while exports to Israel, Jordan, and Oman all exceeded double-digit growth.
In the first half of 2025, China's medical device exports to the five Central Asian countries totaled $380 million, up 16.4% year-on-year. Exports to Kazakhstan reached $190 million, up 15.9% year-on-year; to Kyrgyzstan $90 million, up 9.6% year-on-year.
**Continued Domestic Substitution Trend with Independent Innovation Deeply Restructuring Import Landscape**
In the first half of 2025, China's medical device imports continued their downward trend, totaling $16.99 billion, down 5.7% year-on-year, maintaining negative growth for three consecutive years. Under the dual drive of technological upgrades and policy guidance, the domestic substitution landscape is accelerating its transition from mid-to-low-end consumables to high-end equipment fields.
In vitro diagnostic reagents (customs code: 38221900), as the largest import category, saw import value decline 19.4% year-on-year, mainly due to improved IVD domestic production rate and procurement policy support. Medical imaging equipment substitution was particularly significant, with color ultrasonic diagnostic equipment imports declining 5.7% year-on-year and X-ray application equipment imports plummeting 30.6% year-on-year, reflecting the crowding-out effect of domestic equipment technological breakthroughs. High-value consumables (such as artificial joints, vascular stents, etc.) also showed notable import declines due to volume-based procurement domestic proportion requirements and local cost advantages.
It can be seen that the main battlefield of domestic substitution is gradually shifting toward frontier fields of medical devices, such as high-end imaging systems and other high-value-added products. However, in the short term, domestic devices still need to deepen international collaborative breakthroughs in high-end sensors, precision components and other fields.
In the first half of 2025, the United States, Germany, and Japan remained China's top three medical device import sources, with a combined share of 49.6%, down 2.4 percentage points from the same period last year. While import market concentration continued to decline, imports from the U.S., Germany, and Japan all declined year-on-year, with declines exceeding the overall average.
Among the top ten countries/regions by import value, China's medical device imports from Mexico and France increased year-on-year, while all other markets showed varying degrees of decline. Notably, in the first half, China's medical device imports from Southeast Asia and South America showed significant growth momentum, partly due to Mexico forming short-term growth highlights from U.S. corporate transit tax avoidance and localized production, but deeper motivation comes from global industrial chain multipolar restructuring—including Southeast Asia RCEP regional integration dividends, South America policy-driven infrastructure investment, and Chinese companies' proactive capacity layout and technology export.
**Intertwined International Environment Changes, Firmly Pursuing "Innovation + Globalization" Dual Drive**
Currently, the international situation and foreign trade environment are intertwined and changing, with international tariff policies fluctuating unpredictably and various challenges emerging continuously. Trade restriction measures and abnormal competitive practices emerge endlessly, significantly increasing uncertainty in global economic growth.
In the complex environment of escalating international trade friction and intensifying geopolitical risks, China's medical device industry consistently adheres to the dual drive of technological innovation and globalization strategy. According to the latest statistics from the National Medical Products Administration, 45 innovative medical devices have been approved for market in the first half of 2025, with domestic products accounting for as high as 83.3%.
Domestic companies have achieved comprehensive breakthroughs in traditional foreign-dominated fields—in cardiac electrophysiology, domestic PFA equipment competes synchronously with international giants; in neurointervention, domestic flow diverter stent performance matches international top products.
Meanwhile, leading companies have successively conquered "bottleneck" technologies in high-end fields. United Imaging launched the world's first 5.0T whole-body MRI for humans, marking China's breakthrough of European and American companies' long-term monopoly in ultra-high-field MRI equipment, and achieved FDA and CE certification; Hengrui Medical conquered ECMO membrane lung material PMP membrane fiber technology, achieving full industrial chain domestic substitution.
Facing abnormal competitive practices such as U.S. tariff increases and technology blockades, Chinese companies are reconstructing competitive order through "technology echelon + global layout." United Imaging has built a global service network of "7 regional spare parts hubs + 32 national warehouses" worldwide, radiating global markets through strategic spare parts centers in the United States, Netherlands, UAE, Malaysia and other locations; Microport surgical robots have entered 30 countries in Europe, America and Belt and Road Initiative regions, exporting "Chinese solutions" through 5G remote surgery technology; Mindray Medical is advancing globalization strategy in digitalization and intelligence, bringing remote monitoring and data transmission between devices to hospitals in Africa and Southeast Asia through IoT technology.
More and more domestic medical devices are building independent brands "going global" through internationalized marketing and localized services; simultaneously, more companies are exploring overseas localized deployment of supply chains and production manufacturing, building "R&D-production-service" global collaborative ecosystems.
Breaking through barriers with technological sovereignty and penetrating changes with ecological collaboration, Chinese medical devices are reshaping industry discourse power in the new international competition and cooperation landscape through the dual drive of "technological innovation + globalization."
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