, the world's manufacturing powerhouse, is moving toward a more value-add economy and there's one major industry where the country could dominate both as a maker and consumer: health care.

That's because China rocketed into its position as the world's second-largest economy in a matter of decades under a strict one-child policy, contributing to a rapidly aging society with rising medical needs.

According to health-care information company IQVIA, China was the world's second-largest national pharmaceutical market in 2017 — worth $122.6 billion. It was also the biggest emerging market for pharmaceuticals with growth tipped to reach $145 billion to $175 billion by 2022.

"The development of China's healthcare industry is still in its infancy, evidenced by its low healthcare expenditure as a percentage of GDP ... and a smaller proportion of its population aged 60 and over," DBS analysts Mark Kong and Chris Gao said in a recent note. "That implies plenty of room to grow because as the population ages, the demand for medicines will increase."

There's still scope for growth, experts said, even though the Chinese pharmaceutical market's compound annual growth rate from 2013 to 2017 was 9.4 percent.

For comparison, the world's largest health-care consumer, the , splashed $466.6 billion in 2017 and spent $84.8 billion in the same year.