The ravaging COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that synergy among different parties is crucial to building a better health care system, an expert said at a sub-forum of the Boao Forum for Asia annual conference in Boao, south China's Hainan Province on Sunday. 

Zhang Yuhui, deputy chief of the China National Health Development Research Center, said the country needs more stakeholders outside of governments to improve the public health care system and make a positive social impact. 

He said the Chinese Foreign Ministry has cooperated with other countries to set up communication and technological mechanisms to minimize the pandemic's impact on those countries' economic exchange. 

He also acknowledged that companies have played a crucial role in the fight against COVID-19. 

"For example, an enterprise has cooperated with Ethiopia to build a manufacturing center for polymerase chain reaction testing kits [for COVID-19]," Zhang said. "The center can switch to manufacture AIDS vaccines or tuberculosis test kits, which is also in desperate need, after the pandemic." 

According to Zhang, associations and chambers of commerce have also contributed to setting up a platform for information sharing. 

"The China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products has cooperated with over 40 embassies in China and the United Nations and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to set up an information dissemination platform that reflects the supply and demand of healthcare products globally," he said. 

Internet technology, medical technology and intelligent healthcare technology are helping China to fight and prevent the pandemic from spreading, he said.  

Zhang said the Belt and Road Initiative is an open platform that welcomes other countries to join in and drive technological innovation forward to develop lower-cost technologies, which would benefit all countries.

"In this way, the countries will benefit from it, while the companies gain more business opportunities," he said.