How are the policies to be relaxed in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ) for the medical industry?

Foreign investors are allowed to set up wholly foreign-owned medical institutions in the Shanghai FTZ under the Provisional Measures on the Administration of Wholly Foreign-Owned Medical Institutions in the Shanghai FTZ issued by the Shanghai government.

Previously, regulations explicitly prohibited foreign investors from investing in medical institutions through a wholly foreign-owned enterprise, and limited foreign ownership of a medical institution via equity or corporative joint venture to 70 percent. In 2011, China’s Ministry of Commerce updated the Foreign investment Industrial Guidance Catalogue, classifying for the first time foreign investment in medical institutions as permitted rather than restricted.