Vietnam is encouraging firms, especially foreign-invested and joint venture companies, to manufacture more medical equipment so that domestically-made goods can meet 60 percent of the local demand for the equipment in 2010 compared with the percentage of some 40 percent in late 2005, according to an official source on Tuesday.

Besides common medical equipment used in hospitals and health care training establishments, state-owned scientific and technological centers and enterprises of all economic sectors are encouraged to produce high-technology items like ultrasound and X- ray machines, operating room appliances, bio-chemical testers, materials for transplant, and medical waste treatment facilities, said the Medical Equipment and Work Department under the country's Health Ministry.

To date, some 600 kinds of made-in-Vietnam medical equipment have been recognized by the ministry, but many of them are simple items.

Vietnam currently houses 56 medical equipment producers in all state-owned, non-state and foreign-invested sectors, the department said, noting that the country has annually spent millions of U.S. dollars importing medical equipment in recent years.

Source: Xinhua