Beijing Announces a Further 35% Cut of Medicine PricesThe Beijing price department began on September 5 to take drastic price-cut measures for 99 specifications in nine categories of medicine. This is the city's 7th price reduction in recent years.According to an official from the Beijing Price Bureau, the average rate of price cut this time is 35.91 percent. The price department said that the price for medicine of the cefradine type is cut by a wide margin because this type of medicine has a more than 50 percent discount rate in retail, with an absolute feature of staggering profit. The price department indicates that in view of a possible rebound in the present market price of medicine, it will carry on the measure of cutting the excessively high prices of medicines according to the circumstance of medicine price discount and allowance. It also indicates that price departments at all levels will from now on tighten supervision and inspection over medicine prices. At the same time, the price department will adopt advanced methods such as the introduction of public bidding for the purchase of medicine in hospital to perfect the medicine market price mechanism and to control medicine price, so that medicine price tends to become reasonable. |
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