The 26th Annual Meeting and Technical Committee Meeting of the Global Harmonization Working Party (GHWP) were held from Feb 13 to 16, 2023, in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia. Xu Jinghe, deputy commissioner of China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), led a delegation to the meeting.

The meetings of the GHWP Technical Committee included closed-door meetings and open meetings. The nine working groups of the GHWP respectively introduced the latest progress of their work and discussed the focuses and development directions in the next steps. The meeting elected the technical committee office and the chairs and co-chairs of all working groups for the new term. Delegates of the NMPA participated in the election of the co-chair of the Technical Committee and chairs of Working Group 7 and Working Group 9.

In accordance with the Terms of Reference and House Rules of the GHWP, Li Jun, deputy director-general of the NMPA's Department of Medical Device Regulation, was voted as the new co-chair of the GHWP Technical Committee; Chen Yan, director of the Inspection Division V of the Center for Food and Drug Inspection of the NMPA, was voted as the chair of Working Group 7; and Zhou Wenwen, second-level consultant of the Registration Research Division of the NMPA's Department of Medical Device Registration, was voted as the chair of Working Group 9. Assuming leading positions of the Technical Committee will further deepen the technological exchanges between China's medical device regulators and their international counterparts, and will promote the coordination and reliance in global medical device regulation.