(Yicai) April 15 -- Multinational healthcare firms, including Siemens Healthineers and General Electric HealthCare Technologies, have been taking steps to seize market opportunities from the latest policy introduced by China to promote large-scale equipment updates.

Siemens Healthineers set up an exhibition area dedicated to equipment updates at the four-day 89th China International Medical Equipment Fair ended in Shanghai yesterday. The exhibition area covered trade-in schemes for digitization and artificial intelligence, scientific research, green and environmental protection, medical accessibility, and disease diagnosis and treatment.

On March 13, China's State Council released an action plan to drive large-scale equipment updates and trade-in of consumption goods, proposing saving energy and reducing emissions, safety production, digital transition, and smart upgrading as the directions to promote equipment updates and renovations in key industries. The country's device update market has an annual value of over CNY5 trillion (USD690.7 billion), according to official estimates.

Introducing the trade-in policy is good news for the whole medical industry and is particularly motivating for companies that have been operating in China for years, Pu Zhengrong, vice president and head of clinical therapies systems at Siemens Healthineers China, told Yicai. The German firm has enormous pieces of equipment that have been in service in China for over a decade, Pu added.

GE Healthcare will focus on providing locally-made equipment to clients and meet the high-end, smart, and green directions mentioned in the action plan, Chen Jinlei, VP and general manager for the medical imaging business at GE Healthcare China, told Yicai.

The healthcare branch of General Electric brought to the CMEF its smart imaging platform IQ Engine, which can provide medical imaging equipment with better picture quality, faster scanning speed, and more accurate diagnosis while making customized expansion of clinical application functions based on hospitals' needs, Yicai learned.

China is expected to add details to the implementation of large-scale equipment updates before July, with procurement procedures to formally launch that month, an industry insider told Yicai. Chinese governments of all levels are answering the call of the central government to promote higher spending in the healthcare industry, the insider added.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione