The large-scale demand for new coronavirus vaccines will accelerate the upgrade of domestic pharmaceutical cold chain logistics featuring enhancements in hardware, human resources, management, quality control and digitalization to further improve the overall performance of the industry－especially in areas such as services quality, response speed and industrial standardization, he said.

After deciding to provide homegrown vaccines free of charge to its citizenry, China has so far administered more than 10 million doses of self-developed COVID-19 vaccines during the ongoing vaccination campaign targeting a number of key groups, including those engaged in handling imported cold-chain products, Customs workers and medical staff, according to the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against COVID-19. Health authorities and experts estimate that if 70 percent of the country is successfully vaccinated, the spread of the disease from person to person will become unlikely.

In July 2020, several Chinese government departments, including the Ministry of Finance and central health authorities, jointly issued a notice requiring national reinforcement of cold chain investment and infrastructure. Following the notice, many local governments have stepped up efforts to strengthen cold chain capabilities, such as funding cold chain devices related to disease control and setting up various preventive measures.

In a recent report by Yuekai Securities, analyst Chen Mengjie said vaccine rollouts will lead to a surge in the pharmaceutical cold chain sector－which is mainly composed of refrigerated production, storage and distribution－thanks to government policy measures that encourage related infrastructure construction.

Increasing investment in the sector will help boost the development of the domestic pharmaceutical cold chain industry, Chen said.