Shenzhen will not approve the construction of new State-owned hospitals from this year, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Daily reported on February 8.
Instead, the city will encourage construction of joint venture, Sino-foreign cooperative and private hospitals.
Zhou Jun'an, director of the Municipal Bureau of Public Health, said Shenzhen will break the monopoly in hospital construction and management further this year, to introduce more foreign doctors and hospital executives.
From the first half of the year, hospitals will need to be separated from drugstores.
(China Daily February 21, 2002)
