China's aesthetic medicine industry is recovering from COVID-19, and first-tier cities are expected to have mature aesthetic medicine markets with quality service providers and well-informed consumers as early as next year, according to Jin Xin, founder and CEO of the country's leading online aesthetic medicine platform SoYoung.

Jin made the remarks on Saturday during an awards ceremony the company held to honor doctors who won a skills contest it organized.

"As the pandemic is well-controlled and vaccination is expected to be available in China soon, the negative impact the pandemic has exerted on the aesthetic medicine industry is fading quickly, and we are confident in the industry's future prospects," he said.

As early as next year, aesthetic medicine service supplies and demands will boom in first-tier cities in China, with consumers of different ages and occupations becoming more rational.

Treatment effects and price-performance will play a key role in consumers' decision-making, as they will attach more importance to doctors' skills and sense of aesthetics for surgical procedures, while for non-to-minimally invasive procedures, product and service quality will matter a lot, he said.

According to a report released by research firm Frost & Sullivan in May, China's aesthetic medicine market will grow 5.7 percent year-on-year, its lowest in the past five years, due to the pandemic.