China removed a three-decade-old tax exemption on contraceptive drugs and condoms from January 1 in new steps to boost low birth rates, reports Reuters. Condoms and contraceptive pills now incur value-added tax of 13%, the standard rate for most consumer goods. The move comes as Beijing struggles to boost birth rates. China’s population fell for a […]
Category: Health Care
Beijing has announced it will restore a 30-year-old tax on contraceptive drugs and condoms in a bid to cut sales of contraceptives and thereby boost birthrates. The announcement follows a recent move to waive all hospital fees for child delivery. China is struggling with a low birth rate, and despite Beijing’s best efforts to reverse […]
China is intensifying its efforts to incentivize childbearing by proposing to make hospital deliveries free of charge, reports Caixin. This is the latest step in a broad campaign to reverse the country’s deepening demographic decline. The National Healthcare Security Administration, the country’s medical-insurance regulator, set out plans at a meeting last week to eliminate out-of-pocket costs […]
Beijing has announced that all childbirth deliveries in hospitals will become free in 2026. This is the latest move in an ongoing campaign aimed at tackling the declining population. Since the one child policy was abolished around ten years ago, the Chinese leadership has struggled to get people to have children, but the birthrate has […]
China approved its first homegrown mRNA vaccine for COVID-19, adding a key tool to combat future outbreaks of the virus that was missing due to Beijing’s reluctance to allow Western-made shots using the gene-based technology, reports The Wall Street Journal. CSPC Pharmaceutical Group’s messenger-RNA vaccine, known as SYS6006, was given emergency-use clearance by regulators, the […]