[사회]Last year, medical equipment trade surplus of 3.7 trillion won … thanks to corona diagnostic products

Korea’s medical device trade balance recorded a surplus for the second year last year as exports of items related to COVID-19 diagnostic tests showed strong growth.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced last year that the medical device trade surplus reached 3.74 trillion won, up 44% from 2020.

In the medical device trade balance, Korea did not escape a deficit until 2019, but it turned to a surplus for the first time in 2020 thanks to the growth of items related to COVID-19 diagnostic tests, and continued its surplus last year.

Medical device production in 2021 was KRW 12,883.1 billion, an increase of 27.1% compared to 2020.

Export performance was KRW 9,874.6 billion and import performance was KRW 6.125.7 trillion, up 30% and 20.8% from 2020, respectively.

The size of the domestic medical device market after adding imports to production and limiting exports was 9,134.1 billion won as of last year, up 21.3% from 2020.

For the past five years, the market size has been growing at an average annual rate of 10.2%.

Last year’s medical device production and export performance was led by in vitro diagnostic medical devices, such as products related to COVID-19 diagnostic tests.

In vitro diagnostic medical devices accounted for 33.8% of the total medical device production, driving the growth of the trade balance.

It is approximately KRW 4.35 trillion, an increase of 29.7% compared to 2020.

Exports of in vitro diagnostic medical devices last year increased by 26.4% compared to 2020 to KRW 5,320.9 billion, accounting for 53.9% of the total exports of medical devices.

Exports of ‘High-Risk Infectious Body Immunotest Reagent’ used for COVID-19 diagnostic testing amounted to 3.33 trillion won, the first among all medical devices, and ‘High-Risk Infectious Body Gene Test Reagent’ came in second with 1.47.8 trillion won.

The production and export of the COVID-19 self-test kit, which was first approved in Korea last year, also increased rapidly.

Last year, it ranked 7th in the overall medical device production ranking (KRW 274.4 billion) and fourth in the export ranking (KRW 482.4 billion), leading the growth of the diagnostic reagent field.

YTN Kim Pyung-jeong ([e-mail])

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