CHONGQING, March 29 -- China's medical equipment market totaled 1.27 trillion yuan (179 billion U.S. dollars) in market capitalization in 2023, official statistics have shown.

The figure was announced by the China Association of Medical Equipment at the 2024 China Medical Equipment Conference, which opened in the city of Chongqing in southwest China on Friday.

According to the association, the figure is 10.4 percent higher than that of the previous year. China has remained the world's second-largest single market for medical equipment.

In 2023, there were 138,000 medical equipment patent applications in China, representing 67 percent of all such patent applications in the world, said the association.

It added that the production of mid-to-high-end medical equipment saw significant growth in the country, while innovative medical equipment continued to emerge at a faster pace.