(Yicai Global) Feb. 1 -- Jiangsu Yuyue Medical Equipment and Supply, a major Chinese medical devices supplier, was fined CNY2.7 million (USD400,000) by local regulators for hiking oximeter prices during the peak of the Covid-19 wave late last year.

The market supervision bureau of Zhenjiang city in Jiangsu province imposed an administrative penalty on Yuyue Medical yesterday, pointing out that since December, the firm has taken advantage of a tight market to hike the price of its finger-clamped pulse oximeter. That disrupted market order, and adversely affected pandemic prevention and control and people’s health, the watchdog said.

Yuyue Medical’s average price for oximeters, which measure the blood’s oxygen levels, was CNY231.78 (USD34.38) per unit last December, a 132 percent markup on November, the penalty document showed. The average cost of warehousing was CNY64.4 (USD9.50) a unit, an increase of just 47 percent on the previous month.

The price hike caused widespread dismay among consumers at the end of last year, and the company responded in early January, saying that it had not increased the price of oximeters but had canceled the discounts on the products because of rising costs.

Founded in 1998, Yuyue Medical makes and sells a wide range of medical devices covering surgical instruments, rehabilitative nursing and health monitoring. In the January to September of last year, its net profit fell 16 percent from a year earlier to CNY1.1 billion (USD163 million), while revenue dipped 3.7 percent to CNY5.1 billion.

Editor: Peter Thomas