China Stops Anti-Dumping Probe Into Foreign Dialysis Kit Makers

By Jof Enriquez,
Follow me on Twitter @jofenriq

The Chinese government recently announced that it is halting an anti-dumping investigation involving manufacturers of dialysis equipment from the European Union and Japan.

Initiated in June, the probe threatened the dominance of international companies operating in China that currently hold three-quarters of the Chinese dialysis market, according to a Reuters report.

"The Ministry of Commerce will from today halt the anti-dumping investigation into hemodialysis devices imported from the European Union and Japan," the ministry said in a statement on its website, according to Reuters. The ministry added that the unnamed local Chinese company that requested the probe had asked regulators to stop the investigation earlier this month.

The ministry said in a previous statement issued in June that it was launching the probe to examine any negative impact on Chinese rivals, according to a previous Reuters article. Germany's Fresenius Medical Care (FMC), which holds about half of the Chinese market for dialysis machines and is the global market leader, confirmed through a spokesman then that it was part of the probe. The spokesman said that FMC believes that it has acted correctly and did not break any Chinese laws.

Other major foreign players in the dialysis equipment market had not confirmed their participation in the probe. U.S. firm Baxter International Inc., which owns the Swedish dialysis equipment maker Gambro and the Japanese firms Nikkiso Co. Ltd and Nipro Corp., has not issued comments or statements about the investigation, according to Reuters. Local Chinese dialysis equipment makers welcomed the government's probe into their larger foreign rivals.

Around 120 million Chinese suffer from chronic kidney disease, according to a study published in The Lancet and cited by Reuters. A smaller but significant number of patients undergo dialysis.

According to a previous Med Device Online article, Chinese officials are intent on developing their homegrown medtech sector to lower healthcare costs. In recent months, they have also tightened the regulatory environment by releasing new guidelines on medical devices and imposing stiffer fines for poor quality and corrupt practices.

China's medical device sector is expected to grow 20 percent annually, according to estimates from McKinsey & Co. cited in the MDO article. The industry was worth $34.51 billion in 2013, according to the Hong Kong Trade and Development Council (HKTDC).