The Chinese will also be entitled to foreign vaccine.
Chinese FosunPharma will import at least 100 million doses of German BioNTech's vaccine against the new coronavirus next year, even as Beijing is developing its own vaccines against Covid-19.
BioNTech's vaccine, produced in collaboration with the American Pfizer, has already received marketing authorizations in several countries, including Great Britain and the United States, where it has started to be inoculated.
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Chinese laboratories are also working on experimental vaccines which have begun to be widely distributed in the country to the most exposed people, but without having yet formally received the green light from the authorities for marketing.
"No less than 100 million doses"
In a statement sent to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Wednesday, FosunPharma specifies that BioNTech will provide it with "no less than 100 million doses of the vaccine against the coronavirus for mainland China in 2021".
FosunPharma will pay 250 million euros as an advance for the supply of 50 million doses, it is specified.
The two groups will share the profits made from the sale of the vaccine in mainland China as well as in Hong Kong and Macao, up to two thirds for Fosun and one third for BioNTech.
FosunPharma is a subsidiary of the diversified conglomerate Fosun International, which owns Club Med in particular.
China, where the epidemic first appeared at the end of last year, has invested heavily in developing vaccines, with President Xi Jinping promising to make it "a global public good."
The Emirati capital Abu Dhabi thus began on Monday to vaccinate its inhabitants using the vaccine of Chinese Sinopharm.
Four vaccines in final testing phase
China currently has four vaccines in the final stages of testing.
Several tests have been carried out by Chinese laboratories in a number of countries, including Brazil, the Emirates and Turkey.
In Peru, trials of the Sinopharm vaccine have been suspended after neurological problems were detected in a volunteer.
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On Monday, the Brazilian health regulatory agency (Anvisa) said China had used "non-transparent" criteria to grant emergency marketing approval for another vaccine, the laboratory's CoronaVac. Sinovac.
In the past, the Chinese pharmaceutical industry has been blamed in adulterated vaccine scandals.