Look out General Electric, Philips, and Siemens. The Chinese government plans to pump up its own medical manufacturing sector to take on global powerhouses, especially in its own exploding domestic health care market, which is now dominated by foreign firms.

At present, the country has a huge demand for health care, according to a June report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Horror stories abound of Chinese citizens at their wits' end over coverage. One headline, from a 2014 Time article on the subject, shows just how critical getting care can be: "This Man Amputated His Own Leg: That’s How Bad China’s Health Care Crisis Is."

As the nation focuses on expanding access and increasing affordability of care for its huge populations, however, the dependency on foreign imports may be changing. It's part of a national manufacturing program known as "Made in China 2025," according to China Times.

"'Made in China 2025' is an initiative to comprehensively upgrade Chinese industry," according to CSIS. Its report noted that this Chinese program was inspired by Germany's "Industry 4.0" plan, adopted in 2013.

Like the German effort, the core idea is to focus on so-called "intelligent manufacturing," which applies information technology to production, such as the Internet of Things, the networking of far-flung devices, to permit global production and innovation both for efficient mass production and customization.

“If we cannot make products with good quality and brands, China cannot become a manufacturing powerhouse as we hope,” said Sha Nansheng, vice director of the Department of Science and Technology of the Ministry of Industry and Telecommunication Technology (MIIT), which led the creation of the “Made in China 2025” plan, according to Marketwatch.

Chinese brands are meant to get a boost from this new policy to both increase their quality and make them competitive with the big foreign manufacturers, especially in the production of high end gear like MR systems and CT scanners.

At present GE, Philips, and Siemens have a 70 percent share of that market, according to China Times, adding that foreign brands currently supply 80 percent to 90 percent of all high-end medical equipment in the country.

The lack of ability to compete with the global players has relegated China's 16,000 domestic medical manufacturers to the lower-end part of the market, gaining them a market share of just $2.73 million in a market that topped $44.42 billion in 2014, according to the publication.

Worse still for China's health care system, imported equipment is much more expensive than it is in the countries of origination – 50 percent to 100 percent more, sometimes even more. A $200 GE intravascular stent costs between $3,000 and almost $5,000, for example.

Liao Xinpo, of the Guangdong Health and Family Planning Commission, told China Times that local hospitals tend to buy imported because they get high kickbacks – up to 40 percent on equipment, 20 percent on medicines.

Since the government started pushing domestic medical equipment development in 2013, capacity rose to $27.36 billion from $2.88 billion in 2001. The government started to step up efforts in fostering the development of the domestic medical equipment industry in 2013, a year after the market began to take off, according to the publication, adding that this rapid growth has also pushed domestic firms to scale up through mergers to become more competitive, with 35 mergers so far as of last September.

"We anticipate continued high, sustainable growth, especially as health care has been, and will remain, a key focus of the Chinese government. With the ongoing health care reform and internet boom in China, we expect more positive news and exciting investment opportunities ahead," Yang Liu, chairman of Atlantis Investment Management, co-founder of China Times Investments and managing director of Riverwood Asset Management (Cayman) Ltd., told Citywire Global.