[Excerpt translation from Chinese to English provided by Business and Human Rights Resource Centre]

“China Dragon sets up medical laboratory one week after security government contract; China Inspection Co. to conduct 200,000 tests, involving HK$60 million”, 6 August 2020

Our exclusive report revealed that China Inspection Co. and its subsidiary China Dragon Inspection & Certification (HK) Ltd (China Dragon), which have secured the government’s procurement for providing COVID-19 testing services, are not recognized as medical laboratories in Hong Kong. According to estimates, China Inspection Co. will conduct 200,000 tests for two groups of people, involving HK$60 million.

Besides, China Dragon established a new company on 23 July, more than a week after securing the government’s contract. According to the Companies Registry, China Dragon holds 51% of the new company’s shares… Board members of the new company includes a registered medical laboratory technologist, meeting the requirement under the Supplementary Medical Professions Ordinance that at least one board member of a company running medical laboratory business has to be a registered medical laboratory technologist…

We previously revealed that China Inspection Co. and China Dragon do not operate medical laboratory business, nor are their medical laboratories recognized. They nonetheless have secured the government’s contract for providing COVID-19 testing services… Replying to our enquries, the Home Affairs Department, which help launch the testing program, said the services are provided by a collaboration between China Dragon and local laboratories that meet the relevant requirements, but the department refused to disclose the service charge. The department did not respond to our questions on the names of China Dragon’s partner laboratories and why the government does not purchase testing services directly from local laboratories…

In a press statement, the government explained the arrangements of testing services for specific groups, claiming that as the pandemic gets worse, some service providers have decided to partner with other private laboratories so as to launch the testing program sooner and provide the amount of testing service requested by the government…