Doctor Connie Mauroschat administers the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to elderly Potsdam resident Gisela Rathgeber, 80, at the vaccination center at the Metropolis-Halle events center on the first day the center began operation during the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in Potsdam, Germany, 05 January 2021. EPA-EFE/Sean Gallup / POOL On his first visit to China since becoming chancellor and the first by a G7 leader since the pandemic, Scholz said China and Germany had different approaches to fighting the virus but had a joint responsibility to eliminate it.
BioNTech, which partnered with U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc PFE.N during the pandemic, would be the first non-Chinese coronavirus vaccine to be administered in China as Beijing has hitherto insisted on administering domestically produced vaccines.
Shares in BioNTech were up 5% after the announcement.
A spokesperson for BioNTech told Reuters that vaccines for the Chinese market would be initially imported.
The two countries "agreed on close cooperation in the fight against the pandemic," Scholz said in a briefing alongside the Chinese premier Li Keqiang.
"This also includes an approval of the BioNTech vaccine for expatriates in China. Of course, this can only be a first step. I hope that the circle of eligible persons can soon be widened to a general free ability of the BioNTech vaccine," said Scholz.
The announcement comes amid rumours that Beijing will soon lift its stringent Covid-19 lockdown policies, though there has been no official announcement to that effect.
By Andreas Rinke
(Reporting by Andreas Rinke, Kirsti Knolle and Hans Seidenstuecker; writing by Matthias Williams; editing by Miranda Murray)