India poised to tap $3 trillion global healthcare industry: Union Minister

EPP News Bureau - New Delhi

INDIA is well positioned to tap the top end of the $3 trillion global healthcare industry because of the facilities and services it offers, and by leveraging the brand equity of Indian healthcare professionals across the globe, said Vinod Khanna, Union Minister of State for External Affairs.

Delivering the inaugural address at the two-day conference ‘Healthcare - Destination India’ being organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), he said his government believes that there is tremendous potential for co-operation between India and Pakistan in the healthcare sector.

‘‘The Indian government will encourage initiatives from both countries to work on a reciprocal basis and exchange doctors and coordinate in research programmes concerning health,’’ he said.

The Government of India places top priority to healthcare in the national agenda. It is very serious about encouraging indigenous R&D and creation of human capital. The imminent changes in Indian laws and procedures relating to recognition of intellectual property and foreign investments will allow global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to set up partnerships with Indian counterparts, added the Minister.

Dr Farzana Nazir, parliamentary secretary - Health, Punjab, Government of Pakistan, the Guest of Honour at the conference, described healthcare as an area where both countries can work in cooperation for optimum utilisation of their respective strengths.

Dr Farzana is leading a team of 12 medical professionals from Pakistan to participate in the conference, which features a special plenary session on India-Pakistan - Opportunities in Healthcare.

In his keynote address, Dr Naresh Trehan, executive director, Escorts Heart Institute & Research Centre, highlighted that collective cooperation between the government and the private sector is extremely vital to enable healthcare services to reach the masses.

Stressing that the healthcare industry is very robust, he observed that India spends 5.2 per cent of its GDP on healthcare, which is comparable with most other developing countries, which spend between 5-7 per cent of their GDP on healthcare.

With the healthcare industry in India expected to grow in size to Rs 270,000 crore by 2012 from Rs 86,000 crore in 2001, both government and industry need to take actions that can increase investment and employment in healthcare and make high quality healthcare more affordable and available to all. This would improve the quality of life of our people, leading to greater socio-economic progress of the country, he said.

The healthcare industry employs over four million people, which makes it one of the largest service sectors in the economy of our country. As medical costs sky rocket in the developed world, countries like India have immense potential for what is called ‘‘Medical Tourism’’, highlighted Harpal Singh, Conference chairman, in his theme address.

India, with outstanding human resource talent and the world class medical facilities, was now poised to take leadership in the fast emerging arena of healthcare management which is witnessing the first signs of globalisation, he said.

Over 150 delegates from industry, government and institutions attended the two-day conference which has issues such as conforming to international benchmarks, human organ donation, compliance to ethical standards of governance, role of technology and medical insurance, etc on the agenda.