4th June 2025: EU Restricts Chinese Firms to Access Medical Devices Procurement

Описание: This episode includes segments on:





• EU member states restrict Chinese medical devices firms’ access to EU public procurement; 
• China official May PMI; and
• Caixin China General Manufacturing PMI in May.





The Chamber’s full report of the US-China Trade War survey findings is now available to download for free from the Chamber’s website.






Listeners are also invited to attend the event Navigating Data Governance in the AI Era – Compliance Challenges Across China and the EU on 16th June. The event will take place in Beijing and attendees can also watch online.










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Read more:






EU member states restrict Chinese medical devices firms’ access to EU public procurement






Statement on the European Commission’s Decision to Restrict Chinese Firms’ Access to EU Procurement Contracts Under the International Procurement Instrument (IPI) (https://www.europeanchamber.com.cn/en...)






China official May PMI (NBS)






https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/2025...






Caixin China General Manufacturing PMI, May






https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/H...






European Chamber Report: Flash Survey on the US-China Trade War (https://www.europeanchamber.com.cn/en...)






European Chamber event: Navigating Data Governance in AI Era: Compliance Challenges Across China and the EU (https://www.europeanchamber.com.cn/en...)






Transcript:






RUI: Hello and welcome to China ShortCuts,






MARIANN: the European Chamber’s weekly catchup on China’s business landscape.






RUI: This episode was recorded on 4th June 2025.






(MUSIC)






RUI: On 2nd June, European Union Member States voted to restrict Chinese medical device manufacturers’ access to the EU’s procurement market. The move constitutes the first use of the EU’s International Procurement Instrument or IPI. It follows an investigation launched last April, which concluded that foreign products only have minimal access to Chinese government procurement for healthcare equipment.






MARIANN:  Chinese medical devices providers will now be blocked from bidding on relevant EU public procurement tenders with a value over EUR 5 million for a period of five years.






A lack of fair access to government procurement in China has been a longstanding issue for European companies operating in the country. It has been a key advocacy topic for the European Chamber’s Healthcare Equipment Working Group since the launch of the China Manufacturing 2025 initiative in 2015, which included market share targets for domestic high-end medical devices. In the European Chamber’s Business Confidence Survey 2025, 100 per cent of respondents in the medical devices sector reported missing business opportunities in China in 2024 due to market access and regulatory barriers, with ‘discrimination against foreign-invested enterprises in public procurement’ the top regulatory obstacle faced.






While caution should be exercised in the potential application of trade defence tools, the European Chamber supports the end goal of this action, which is to ensure that European companies have the same access to China’s procurement market as Chinese companies enjoy in Europe.






(MUSIC)






RUI: Data released by the statistics bureau on 31st May showed that manufacturing activity in China continued to decline for the second month in a row in May, as demand continued to contract.






MARIANN:  The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index or PMI stood at 49.5 points. This was the second month that the reading stayed below 50 points, indicating a contraction. That said, the pace of decline slowed compared to April, with most subindices improving from the previous month. However, while an improvement in supply meant that production edged back up to expansion territory, demand still missed the mark, with both new export and import orders contracting in May.






The official non-manufacturing PMI, which gauges services and construction activity stood at 50.3 points, with the pace of expansion dropping for the third consecutive month in May. This was largely due t...