Breaking Down Prejudices Against ''Small, Scattered, And Disorganized'' Domestically Produced Instruments: The Promotion of Domestically Produced Instruments Is a Protracted Battle

Introduction: On May 9th, the China Instrument and Control Society (hereinafter referred to as "CIMS") issued an open letter regarding the "Public Notice of Expert Opinions on Imported Products by the Chengdu Municipal Institute of Product Quality Supervision and Inspection," addressing the expert opinions on the procurement of imported instruments published on April 27, 2016, by the Sichuan Provincial Government Procurement Network.

The public notice shows that the Chengdu Municipal Institute of Product Quality Supervision and Inspection plans to procure 12 categories of imported instruments, including: an integrated pure/ultrapure water system, an inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometer (ICP-AES), a new type of stacking and extrusion cyclic fatigue multi-purpose extrusion press, a fully automatic headspace sampler, an atomic absorption spectrometer, a post-column derivatization instrument, a fluorescence spectrophotometer, a triple quadrupole liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) system, a microwave digester, an ICP-AES, an electron probe microscope, and an atomic absorption spectrometer, with a budget of 11.42 million yuan. All of these products are intended to be imported.

Not a "New Thing" in the Reality of It

In fact, similar "procurement announcements for imported products" are not new in the field of scientific instruments, nor are similar questions raised. "The China Instrument and Control Society (CIACS) first questioned the procurement of a large number of imported instruments in a municipal-level drug testing equipment tender in 2010, and sent letters to relevant departments," said Yan Zengxu, senior advisor to CIACS, in an interview with the media on behalf of CIACS. "This time, we sent a written open letter to relevant units including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Sichuan Provincial Department of Finance, the quality supervision system, and the Chengdu Municipal Institute of Product Quality Supervision and Inspection."

Similar to CIACS's past efforts, this open letter has so far received no direct feedback from the relevant units.

"In recent years, the state has introduced many policies to encourage the development and use of domestically produced instruments. This is a favorable policy, as the state advocates the development of domestic equipment, independent innovation, and industrial upgrading. Against this backdrop, we hope that government procurement can also keep up with the trend," said Yan Zengxu. However, over the years, similar incidents have repeatedly failed to receive positive responses, and Yan Zengxu feels that "the problem has not been solved." This isn't new; there's evidence to support it. In 2015 alone, media outlets reported on several similar cases of public notices regarding import opinions, yet the prevailing sentiment was that "even domestic companies that had been actively protesting had become numb."

However, the China Instrument and Control Society (CICC) still released this open letter. "Although we know our impact is limited, if we don't speak out, (domestic instrument) companies will have even less support."

Are domestic instruments really that bad?

Data compiled by the media reveals a pessimistic market situation. According to media analysis of the instruments (in use) of over 4,000 instrument users in China, the proportion of domestically produced instruments is not optimistic.

Statistical data from 19 categories of instruments, including mass spectrometers, spectrometers, chromatographs, and physical property analyzers, shows that among these users, domestically produced instruments (referring to instruments manufactured by Chinese companies, including those manufactured abroad, excluding instruments manufactured in China by foreign companies) account for less than 10% of the total. This is especially true in the field of laboratory mass spectrometry; although more than ten Chinese companies can provide commercial laboratory mass spectrometers, none of them appear in the statistical rankings.

"There is a significant gap between domestically produced instruments and those from abroad," said Yan Zengxu. "However, since the 'Eleventh Five-Year Plan,' under the guidance of independent innovation, the technological level of domestically produced instruments has greatly improved. Now, in fields such as mass spectrometry, chromatography, and spectroscopy, domestically produced instruments have entered the mid-to-high-end application market."

The more than 4,000 units surveyed by the media are mainly state-owned quality inspection/testing institutions, research institutes, and universities. Generally speaking, domestically produced instruments have a good market share among manufacturers. However, due to the difficulty in statistically analyzing the instrument ownership and usage of manufacturers, this data gap leads to a relatively low market share for domestically produced instruments as reported by the media.

Although the overall market share of domestically produced instruments is not optimistic, some instrument types have broken through the encirclement of imported instruments. Statistics show that the market share of domestically produced instruments exceeds 20% in the ultraviolet/visible spectrophotometer and atomic absorption spectrometer categories. "It's problematic that domestically produced atomic absorption and microwave digestion equipment are all imported, and not even used in high-end fields like scientific research. Domestic atomic absorption systems offer a complete range, from Zeeman atomic absorption to graphite furnace and single-flame systems; and there are numerous domestic companies and products for microwave digestion and other pretreatment equipment. Why import them?" said Yan Zengxu. The China Instrument and Control Society's open letter also questioned the technical parameter descriptions in the public notice regarding instruments and equipment where domestic companies already possess strong competitiveness, such as atomic absorption and microwave digestion equipment.

The Macro Environment and the Long-Term Battle

For many years, the China Instrument and Control Society, along with other associations and societies, has used various methods to promote the purchase of domestically produced instruments by users. Thanks to their joint efforts over the years, some favorable policies for domestically produced instruments have been introduced. Just this month, the "Research and Application of Verification and Evaluation of Domestic Testing Instruments and Equipment," a project jointly promoted by the China Instrument and Control Society and other organizations, and funded by the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, will hold another meeting. This project aims to help domestically produced instruments improve their products and better promote their use through practical operation verification by mid-to-high-end users.

"This research project has already yielded results and had a significant impact, greatly helping government procurement of domestically produced instruments," said Yan Zengxu.

"Overall, the current environment is unfavorable for domestically produced instruments," Yan Zengxu said. "If user units purchase domestically produced instruments and problems arise, they will be blamed for the instruments' inadequacy, and the purchaser will be held responsible. However, if they purchase imported instruments, when problems occur, everyone can only assume that the most advanced technology is not yet perfect. This is a major reason why many users choose imported instruments."

In the process of transitioning from a planned economy to a market economy, a number of private scientific instrument companies have emerged in China. Some of these companies have achieved considerable scale. Statistics show that currently, among companies in my country's experimental analysis and environmental monitoring industries with an annual industrial scale exceeding 500 million yuan, domestic instrument manufacturers account for 80%. At the same time, a number of listed companies have emerged, or leading companies that can directly compete with foreign companies in certain single-product instrument areas. Furthermore, domestic instrument companies have even gone global, acquiring several foreign instrument companies. "Overall, domestic instrument manufacturers are still characterized by being small, scattered, and disorganized. Price wars and homogeneous competition are still quite common, which to some extent contributes to user distrust of domestic instruments. Some users have never even dealt with domestic instrument manufacturers," said Yan Zengxu. He added that for the China Instrument and Control Society (CIACS), promoting the procurement and use of domestic instruments by users is a "protracted war."

"We plan to promote the development of domestic instrument manufacturers in four aspects: first, continue to advocate for and strive to attract attention from all sectors of society to bring policy support; second, unite social resources to build a platform conducive to the promotion of domestic instruments; third, utilize the resources of industry associations to promote the industry and enterprises, and facilitate upstream and downstream connections for domestic instrument manufacturers; and fourth, guide domestic instrument manufacturers towards specialization, refinement, and uniqueness, promoting industrial transformation and upgrading," said Yan Zengxu. "The industry will inevitably undergo a reshuffle sooner or later, and more competitive domestic instrument manufacturers will emerge."