In Africa's market, the Chinese companies' competitors are mainly international players, such as Germany's Siemens and Japan's Toshiba. Products that have been sold in Africa are mostly for top-end hospitals.

"The feedback is quite good. People are interested in knowing more about our products," Li Shunhai told ChinAfrica.

Apart from lower prices, the Chinese companies also offer better understanding of the clients and better customer service, an area where other foreign counterparts cannot compete. For example, the engineers from Wandong normally work for a local hospital or clinic for two weeks or longer. They provide technical support and services, such as consultations and training, to help customers use their products properly.

"We won't leave until we help locals operate the machines well. Technicians from the Chinese medical teams can come to help in a short period of time; or our clients can contact us via email or phone," said Li.

Li said his company's products are of such good quality that he only replaced a small part on a still well functioning X-ray machine, installed in 2003 in Central Africa Republic, in 2009.

Lucrative prospects

Although China's medical equipment sales to Africa is still small, there is still an opportunity for these products to see a growth in distribution, as most of these devices are dispatched throughout Africa as foreign aid. Despite this, there still lies a niche for the Chinese products that are exported.

China is now South Africa's fourth largest exporter of medical equipment. Statistics show that by 2012, South Africa's total import of medical equipment is expected to reach $1.2 billion.

According to a marketing report from the China Chamber of Commerce for Import & Export Medicines & Health Products, Chinese medical equipment suppliers have benefited from the growing Sino-African economic and trade relations, and long-term bilateral medical cooperation.

"We have also benefited from the understanding of the needs and wants of local people and the hands-on experience with local hospitals and clinics in Africa," said Li Shunhai, adding that the medical equipment exhibitions that are regularly held in African countries give China's suppliers opportunities to market themselves.

Industry insiders have admitted that most African countries have gotten used to purchasing machines from European and American suppliers. While Li accepts this, he believed that with the improvement of the R&D capacity and reasonable prices, Chinese medical equipment suppliers will have a lot of potential in the African market.