Shanghai will tighten control over medicine prices in community clinics and health service centers, ensuring that prices grow by no more than 15 percent per year, said Municipal Health Bureau director Chen Zhirong here on Thursday.

In future, Shanghai will organize bulk medicine purchases for community clinics and fix a price based on the actual purchase price to which a government-approved profit margin will be added, the official said.

Medicine sales are one of the main sources of income for hospitals, but Shanghai's community clinics are more dependent on medicine profit margins than large-scale hospitals.

Chen said Shanghai currently has 227 standardized community clinics downtown and in the suburbs, and they are increasingly popular with citizens.

Apart from the curb on medicine prices, the bureau will also seek to reduce other medical service charges.

(Xinhua News Agency October 27, 2006)