ARLINGTON, VA. - The medical electronics industry should continue to grow this year thanks mostly to exports, which bodes well for plastics processors serving the industry. U.S. factory sales of electronic medical equipment are forecast to grow about 5 percent, according to figures compiled by the Medical Electronics Manufacturers, an Electronic Industry Association division of Arlington.
Almost all the growth in the electronic medical sector will come from a 10 percent exports increase in 1995, said Todd Thibodeaux, EIA senior economist.
The division said 1994 sales of electronic medical equipment grew 19 percent to $4.3 billion. The fastest-growing subsector of that equipment was electronic medical instruments, appliances and parts, which grew 113 percent to $314.8 million.
Gene Lussier, EIA group vice president, said foreign customers account for about 40 percent of sales from U.S.-based production. He attributed this to a lack of modern medical equipment in former Communist countries of Central Europe and in most of the nonindustrialized nations, ``which has created a potentially large market for U.S. medical electronics.''
