GUIYANG -- Guiyang, the capital of southwest China's Guizhou Province, is becoming a popular destination for Taiwanese investors who wish to set up health institutions on the Chinese mainland.
"Although the economy of Guizhou is underdeveloped, it has great potential in terms of setting up hospitals. What I have done during this visit is look for proper investment opportunities," said Lee Li-ming, a doctor from Taiwan.
The Chinese mainland and Taiwan signed the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement on June 21. The agreement, which is intended to boost cross-strait economic ties, covers dozens of service-oriented industries, including health care.
Since the agreement was signed, more than 30 hospital investors and medical experts have flocked to Guiyang to take advantage of the relatively undeveloped inland market.
Li said Taiwan has a lot of professional practitioners and technology, but lacks patients. Guizhou, on the other hand, has a massive population and poor medical facilities, making it an ideal destination for Taiwanese medical investors.
The Chinese mainland has suffered from a lack of high-quality health care resources, as well as uneven distribution of such resources, for a long time. The best hospitals in the mainland are concentrated in large cities, while underdeveloped provinces like Guizhou and Gansu suffer from poor medical facilities.
With the development of the economy and the relaxing of health industry restrictions, private hospitals and social capital have had an increasing presence in the state-owned medical industry.
According to the Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed in 2010, Taiwanese hospitals are allowed to operate in five eastern and southern coastal provinces and municipalities, including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan.
By the end of 2011, 22 Taiwanese hospitals and mainland-Taiwan joint hospitals had been set up on the mainland. However, they are all located in developed coastal regions and therefore cannot help to meet demand elsewhere on the mainland.
"We've encouraged Taiwanese investors to enter remote areas of the mainland to set up hospitals and provide medical services for local residents," said Wang Liji, deputy director of the International Cooperation Department under the Ministry of Health (MOH).
"We used to look more at markets in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in the past, but those cities already have an overabundance of medical resources. So we have to find more opportunities out west," said Chiu Chun-lun, chairman of Yangming Eye Hospital, which has invested in ophthalmology businesses in central China's Hubei Province and northeast
China's Liaoning Province.
Some industry insiders believe the mainland needs to make the competitive environment between private and state-owned hospitals more fair, as well as create preferential insurance and taxation policies for private hospitals.
"Taiwan and the mainland share the same language and have similar cultures. Taiwanese management can suit the demands of the mainland and Taiwanese businessmen have rich experience, which can help Taiwanese medical practitioners enter the mainland market more smoothly," said Chen Chin-nan, director of a family health care association in the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung.
