Healthcare furniture for hospital projects in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the wider Gulf is made in China mostly by commercial furniture factories and rehabilitation equipment makers, not by one dedicated “hospital furniture” industry. In our search of Chinese annual reports, only one listed company could be tied to care furniture through its own filing: Xiangyu Medical Co., Ltd. (Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market: 688626). For every other line on the schedule, the right question is which manufacturer type makes it, and which destination-market documents the item needs before it can clear into a Gulf hospital.
This round-up is written for developers, general contractors, builders, commercial project owners, interior design and construction companies and FF&E solution providers delivering hospitals, clinics, rehabilitation centres and long-stay care buildings in the Middle East. It is descriptive, not a ranking, and FBM Sourcing is not affiliated with the company named here.
What Does This List Cover, and What Does It Leave Out?
A hospital FF&E schedule splits into three groups, and each group is bought differently:
- Regulated medical devices, such as hospital beds, examination couches and powered patient-handling equipment. Hospital beds are covered separately in our round-up of hospital bed manufacturers in China, so this article does not repeat that ground.
- Healthcare furniture that is not a medical device in most markets: bedside cabinets, overbed tables, patient and visitor chairs, waiting-area seating, nurse stations, consulting room furniture and treatment-room storage.
- Interior works around the furniture: doors, flooring, wall protection, sanitary ware and lighting, which usually come from other factories again.
This article covers the second group, seen from the destination side. Our global round-up of healthcare furniture manufacturers in China profiles factories without reference to any one market; here the focus is what a Gulf hospital project must ask for before an item is shipped.
At a Glance: Listed Company and Manufacturer Types
| Company or manufacturer type | Where | Role in healthcare furniture | Evidence to request |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xiangyu Medical Co., Ltd. (SSE STAR Market: 688626) | Neihuang County, Anyang, Henan (registered address) | Rehabilitation equipment maker whose product structure includes care and wellness furniture | Which items are its own furniture products, their test reports, and the destination registration where an item is a device |
| Ward and patient-room casegoods makers | Commercial furniture regions | Bedside cabinets, overbed tables, wardrobes, desks for patient rooms | Board and edge specification, surface cleaning resistance, hardware models |
| Patient and visitor seating makers | Contract seating factories | Recliners, patient chairs, visitor and consulting room chairs | Strength test report for the exact model, fire test report for the exact fabric and filling |
| Linked and beam seating makers | Public seating factories | Waiting-area and corridor seating on beams or linked frames | Strength evidence for the seat and for the linking system, fire evidence for any upholstery |
| Nurse station and reception millwork makers | Custom casework and joinery factories | Nurse stations, reception counters, pharmacy and clean utility casework | Shop drawings, worktop material data, fire performance of the board where required |
| Medical cabinetry and storage makers | Steel and laminate casework factories | Treatment-room cabinets, modular storage, trolleys that are not devices | Material and coating data, load and stability evidence, cleaning compatibility |
The Listed Company: Xiangyu Medical Co., Ltd. (688626)
Xiangyu Medical is listed on the STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and the exchange’s company data shows it as listed since 31 March 2021. It is named because its 2025 annual report lists care furniture among its product categories.
- What the annual report says: the company describes itself as a rehabilitation medical device maker, founded in 2002, with ten product categories: rehabilitation physiotherapy, rehabilitation training, rehabilitation nursing, rehabilitation aids, rehabilitation assessment, traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment, health care, medical aesthetics, care and wellness furniture, and home rehabilitation.
- Furniture subsidiary: the same report lists a wholly owned subsidiary in Henan whose name identifies it as a medical and elderly care furniture company.
- What the report does not say: its revenue by product is reported only in equipment categories (physiotherapy, training, assessment, and trading and accessories), so furniture is not disclosed as a revenue line of its own.
- Middle East link: the report states that its export products are sold mainly to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Central Asia, South America and Africa, among more than 30 countries and regions, and that some products hold EU CE certification.
Role: a rehabilitation equipment group that also offers care furniture, most relevant to rehabilitation and long-stay care wings. Evidence to request: confirmation of which scheduled items are made in its own plants, test reports naming each model, and, where an item is a medical device, the destination-market registration or marketing authorisation for that exact model.
Which Manufacturer Types Supply the Rest of a Gulf Hospital Furniture Schedule?
Most healthcare furniture in China is made by private companies that do not publish annual reports, so they are described here by type. The factory type decides what evidence already exists and what has to be tested for the project.
Ward and patient-room casegoods makers
Bedside cabinets, overbed tables, wardrobes and patient-room desks are casegoods, usually made by the same factories that make hotel and office casegoods. The healthcare difference is the specification: surfaces that resist the operator’s cleaning agents, no exposed board at edges, and hardware and castors that survive frequent use. Evidence to request: board type and grade, edge banding material, the list of cleaning agents the surface was tested against, and hardware and castor models written into the approved sample record.
Patient and visitor seating makers
Recliners, patient chairs and visitor chairs come from contract seating factories. Two reports matter for each model: a strength and durability report, and a fire report for the exact cover and filling combination. Evidence to request: both reports naming the model, the fabric and the foam, plus the seat user-weight basis of the strength test, because a bariatric chair needs evidence at a higher load than a standard visitor chair.
Linked and beam seating makers
Waiting areas and corridors use seating on beams or linked frames. These are often different factories from the patient-chair makers, and the linking system needs its own line in the specification. Evidence to request: strength evidence for the individual seat and for the beam or link, the fixing method to the floor where required, and fire evidence for any upholstered pads.
Nurse station and reception millwork makers
Nurse stations, reception counters and pharmacy casework are built to drawings by custom joinery factories. The risk is the interface: worktop material, cable management and dimensions that must match the building. Evidence to request: shop drawings approved against the interior design, worktop material data (solid surface, quartz or laminate), and fire performance evidence for the board where the fire consultant asks for it.
Medical cabinetry and treatment-room storage makers
Treatment-room cabinets, modular storage and non-device trolleys are made in steel or laminate casework factories. Evidence to request: coating and material data, shelf load and stability evidence, and written confirmation of which cleaning and disinfection agents the finish tolerates.
Care-bed and rehabilitation-aid clusters
Some items at the boundary of furniture and devices come from medical device clusters such as Jizhou District in Hengshui, Hebei, which a Hebei Daily article republished by the provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology in September 2025 describes as a production base for wheelchairs, hospital beds and rehabilitation equipment. Treat items from such a cluster as possible devices and ask how they are classified in the destination market.
Pricing ward furniture and seating for a Gulf hospital project?
Send us your FF&E schedule or BOQ. We will match each line to the right manufacturer type and request the evidence your destination market needs.
Which Destination-Market Documents Apply in Saudi Arabia and the UAE?
The first job on any Gulf hospital schedule is to sort each line into device or non-device, then collect the documents that line needs.
Saudi Arabia: medical devices
The Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) publishes the requirements for obtaining medical device marketing authorization (MDMA) for devices made available for distribution or use in the Kingdom. Its requirements document MDS-REQ 1 refers to the Medical Devices Law issued by Royal Decree No. (M/54) and its Implementing Regulation, and applies to manufacturers of medical devices and their authorized representatives.
Saudi Arabia: products under technical regulations
SABER is the Saudi government platform for registering products and conformity certificates and issuing shipment certificates before products enter the Saudi market. Two notices on the platform, checked in September 2026, are worth knowing:
- from 1 October 2026, the name of the supplier (the importer or local manufacturer) and its commercial registration details must be shown on the product as part of the labelling data, for ten technical regulations;
- the validity of the shipment certificate has been extended from 60 days to 90 days.
Ask the importer of record to confirm, item by item, whether a technical regulation applies. We cover how SABER and CE documents fit together on healthcare work in SABER and CE certifications for school and hospital projects, and Arabic labelling and document language in our guide to Arabic-language documents and labelling for Gulf projects.
The UAE and the wider GCC
In the UAE, product conformity sits with the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology (MoIAT), established in July 2020, whose digital services include registering and issuing certificates of conformity with technical requirements. For medical devices in the UAE, and for any other Gulf state, ask the operator which health regulator’s registration the item needs and request those conformity documents from the manufacturer before the order is placed.
Which Fire and Strength Tests Should Be Named for Healthcare Seating?
A Gulf hospital specification may name British or European tests for upholstered seating. The consultant names the test; the factory then shows a report for the exact model. Standards commonly named, with their current editions as listed by BSI:
- BS 7176:2007+A1:2011, Specification for resistance to ignition of upholstered furniture for non-domestic seating by testing composites.
- BS EN 1021-1:2014, ignitability of upholstered furniture with a smouldering cigarette as the ignition source, and BS EN 1021-2:2014, with a match flame equivalent as the ignition source.
- BS EN 16139:2025, safety, strength and durability requirements and test methods for non-domestic seating.
The scope of EN 16139:2025 is worth reading closely before relying on it for a healthcare project. It covers non-domestic seating for adults with a weight of not more than 110 kg, including office visitor chairs. It does not cover flammability, electrical safety, the durability of upholstery materials, castors or reclining and tilting mechanisms, and it does not apply to the links of linked seating, for which other European Standards exist. In practice that means:
- a strength report under EN 16139 says nothing about fire, so a separate fire report is still needed;
- a recliner’s mechanism and a mobile chair’s castors need their own evidence;
- bariatric seating needs evidence at a higher user weight than the standard covers;
- beam and linked waiting seating needs evidence for the linking system as well as the seat.
For how the whole package is specified and ordered, see hospital furniture procurement from China.
Why Only One Company Is Named Here
We name a company only when two things can be checked in original sources: its stock exchange listing is current, and its own annual report ties it to the product category. For ward furniture, waiting seating, nurse stations and medical casework, full-text searches of Chinese annual reports turned up one listed company that meets both tests. The other medical device and furniture groups we checked report different lines, such as operating theatre systems, sterilisation, imaging, beds, or home and office furniture, rather than hospital ward furniture. Private factories can be excellent suppliers; they are judged on the documents for their own products.
How FBM Sourcing Handles a Gulf Hospital Furniture Package
As a sourcing partner in China, FBM Sourcing starts from the schedule or BOQ, not from a factory list. Each line is matched to the manufacturer type that makes it, and the evidence the destination market and the operator need is requested with the quotation, so gaps show up before samples are approved, not at the port.
- Documents: test reports matched to the exact model, fabric and filling, and the conformity documents the importer of record needs.
- Inspection: one inspection by our own team at the factory after bulk production is finished, before shipment, with photo and video records. The inspection report goes to the client before the balance is paid.
- Containers: Sometimes, on a large project, the healthcare furniture items alone fill full containers; sometimes the healthcare furniture items share containers with the other product categories of the same project; and sometimes, in one batch, we combine a dozen or more product categories from several projects of the same client into a few containers — always full containers, and for us this is routine, well-practised work.
For port options and routing into the Kingdom, see our guide to shipping from China to Saudi Arabia.
Pricing ward furniture and seating for a Gulf hospital project?
Send us your FF&E schedule or BOQ. We will match each line to the right manufacturer type and request the evidence your destination market needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Chinese listed companies make healthcare furniture for Middle East hospital projects?
We found one whose own 2025 annual report ties it to care furniture: Xiangyu Medical Co., Ltd. (Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market: 688626), a rehabilitation equipment maker that lists care and wellness furniture among its product categories and the Middle East among its main export regions; most other healthcare furniture comes from private factories.
Is hospital furniture a medical device in Saudi Arabia?
It depends on the item: medical devices made available in Saudi Arabia need SFDA medical device marketing authorization under the Medical Devices Law, while ordinary furniture such as visitor chairs and storage follows the product-conformity route, so each line on the schedule should be classified before it is ordered and the importer of record should confirm the classification.
What is SABER and does it apply to healthcare furniture?
SABER is the Saudi government platform for registering products and conformity certificates and issuing shipment certificates before goods enter the Saudi market; whether a given furniture item needs a certificate depends on whether it falls under a technical regulation, which the importer of record should confirm item by item.
Does an EN 16139 report prove a waiting-room chair is suitable for a hospital?
Not on its own, because EN 16139:2025 covers strength and durability for adult users of not more than 110 kg, does not include requirements for flammability or for the durability of castors and reclining mechanisms, and does not apply to the links of linked seating, so a hospital chair usually also needs a fire report for its exact fabric and filling and separate evidence for any mechanism, linking system or bariatric load.
Are hospital beds covered in this list?
No, hospital beds are covered in our separate round-up of hospital bed manufacturers in China, which deals with bed standards and device registration, while this list covers the ward furniture, seating, nurse stations and storage that surround them.
About FBM Sourcing
FBM Sourcing manages the entire China procurement package for overseas construction projects. Since 2014 we have worked with developers, general contractors, builders, commercial project owners, interior design and construction companies and FF&E solution providers across more than 20 countries and over 1,000 containers, as their sourcing partner in China — from the schedule or BOQ through factory selection, sampling, inspection by our own team before shipment, consolidation and shipping. All quotations, invoices and shipping documents are issued by FBM Sourcing, and sea freight is quoted to you before shipment. If you have a healthcare furniture package to price, start at China building materials and FF&E procurement.
