The government of Andhra Pradesh (AP) is all set to lay the foundation stone to India’s first medical device manufacturing park, Andhra Pradesh Medical Technology Zone (APMTZ) on August 19 at Nadupur village of Pedda Gantyada Mandal in Vishakhapatnam. The Andhra Pradesh government had earlier signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AIMED) to set up India’s first medical device manufacturing park.

Accordingly, the state government has already demarcated 270 acres of land and initiated all the infrastructure development works such as roads, power supply, drainage, water availability and other industrial amenities. “This is only third such largest medical devices manufacturing industrial park in the world. Spread across 270 acres, the park will house more than 200 medical devices manufacturing units. Already many multinational medical device manufacturing companies have evinced their interests to set up their units in this park. We have invited central ministers Venkaiah Naidu, J.P. Nadda, Ravishankar Prasad, Ashok Gajapatiraju and Nirmala Sitaraman to attend the foundation laying ceremony on August 19, 2016,” informed Kamineni Srinivas, minister for medical health and family welfare, Andhra Pradesh.

The new medical device manufacturing park will have most advanced manufacturing technology under one roof. It will have common manufacturing facilities, plug & play modeled, ready to move in built-up, pre-approved and Factory Act compliant factories. The medical park will also house offices of the state regulatory authorities, the office for manufacturers associations, and export promotion council.

Industry experts are of the view that until now most of the medical equipments were imported from foreign countries, now with the setting up of this park it will spur domestic production of medical devices, help reducing import dependency in this sector while creating employment and growth in the state.