Zhang Yesui, spokesperson for the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress, said on Thursday that China had 17 vaccine candidates entering clinical trials, with several already in third stage clinical tests.

The National Medical Products Administration has given conditional approval for four homegrown vaccines developed by China National Pharmaceutical Group, which is known as Sinopharm, Sinovac, and CanSino Biologics Inc.

According to Feng Duojia, president of the China Association for Vaccines, China's annual COVID-19 vaccine production capacity is expected to be more than 2 billion doses by the end of this year, and can grow to more than 4 billion doses by the end of 2022, if necessary.

"Chinese vaccine producers are building an increasingly greater presence in the world, as reflected by their exports of COVID-19 vaccines, to contribute to global containment of the pandemic," he said.

"Chinese companies are also furthering their efforts for production efficiency improvement and cost control, to help ensure fair distribution of the vaccines as a global public good among developing countries."

More than 20 countries have signed supply contracts with China for the vaccines, with orders from 16 countries and regions already exceeding 50 million doses, he said.

"We will try our best to produce more high-quality vaccines as quickly as possible on the basis of safety and standards to contribute to fairer distribution of COVID-19 vaccines," said Yang Xiaoming, chairman of China National Biotec Group (CNBG), a subsidiary of Sinopharm, and a major COVID-19 vaccine producer in China.

It is said all people are susceptible to COVID-19. Countries around the world should work together on vaccination, personnel protection, and community management to effectively control the disease, Yang told Xinhua News Agency.

China's decision to supply 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to the WHO's global vaccine sharing initiative COVAX signals that the country has honored its commitment to make the vaccines a global public good, he said.

Sinopharm's annual production capacity has already hit 1 billion doses. About 60 million doses of its vaccines have been administered worldwide, Yu Qingming, chairman of Sinopharm Group Co Ltd, a subsidiary of Sinopharm, told the Beijing-based Health Times.

"Currently, most of the countries that received vaccines from China are developing countries, which basically are not capable of independently developing or producing COVID-19 vaccines, and are in dire need of the vaccines compared with other countries," Yang of CNBG said.

The Sinovac vaccine has been approved for emergency use in several countries, including Indonesia, Brazil and Chile, according to Yin Weidong, chairman and CEO of Sinovac Biotech Ltd.

At the end of February, the company had finished its capacity expansion project to increase annual production capacity to 1 billion doses.