Three departments, including the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ("MIIT"), have recently distributed the Circular on Initiating the Third Batch Pilot Demonstration Program on Application of Smart Health and Elderly Care (the "Circular").
According to the Circular, three tasks of the pilot demonstration program include "supporting the formation of a number of model enterprises, including enterprises able to supply mature products, services, and system platforms, or offer overall solutions, in relation to smart health and elderly care". Applicants proposing to build themselves into model enterprises should be product manufacturers, software enterprises, service enterprises, and system integration enterprises, that conduct business in the sphere of smart health and elderly care, and they are also required to satisfy five requirements, such as "having been registered on the Chinese mainland as an independent legal person for at least two years". Moreover, the Circular notes that support will flow first to enterprises and subdistricts where demonstration bases for smart health and elderly care are established, and to enterprises, subdistricts (villages and towns) and bases located in the places where entities participating in the pilot reform for home-based and community-based elderly care or in the national-level pilot scheme on combination of medical care and elderly care are located. Furthermore, the Circular expressly states that all-levels of government agencies and all walks of life are encouraged to show stronger support to this pilot demonstration program, and assist model enterprises, at the level of policies, capital and supporting resources, in growing bigger and stronger.