The Ministry of Civil Affairs, together with the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and ten other agencies, issued the "Three-Year Action Plan for Expanding Capacity and Improving Quality of the Rehabilitative and Assistive Devices Industry (2026-2028)" on July 9, 2026.
The plan targets having more than 500 large-scale enterprises in the sector by 2028, along with cultivating a number of specialized and sophisticated "little giant" firms and manufacturing single champions. It also aims to strengthen six to eight key sub-sectors such as brain-computer interfaces, health and elderly care robots, prosthetics and orthotics, and hearing aids; achieve breakthroughs in 50 key industrial technologies or products; and develop no fewer than 80 key products in areas like health, aging, and elderly care. On standards, no fewer than 60 standards are to be issued, and a number of testing, inspection, and certification bodies fostered.
On the application side, the plan calls for accelerating the deployment of products and services in key areas such as elderly care and disability support, building comprehensive service centers using existing facilities, and certifying a batch of demonstration application scenarios or bases. The service network will promote a "center + station" model to build a convenient and accessible network covering both urban and rural areas.
Six key tasks form the core: the application demonstration and leading action covers expanding scenarios, improving services, cultivating brands, and enhancing exhibitions; the industrial optimization and upgrading action focuses on cluster development, nurturing leading enterprises, and upgrading manufacturing capabilities; the innovation capability enhancement action coordinates innovation resources, achieves breakthroughs in core technologies, and develops key products; the policy efficiency enhancement action includes optimizing financial services, improving supportive policies, and strengthening payment guarantees; the market environment optimization action covers improving the standards system, strengthening quality management, and enhancing industry supervision; and the talent empowerment action leverages think tanks, strengthens training, and improves vocational evaluation.
The plan also supports eligible enterprises in going public for financing, encourages commercial insurers to include rehabilitative and assistive device provision in commercial health insurance coverage, and explores including long-term care-related services and assistive devices into long-term care insurance payment scope.