Geared for Health: Asean’s Growing Medical and Healthcare Industry
Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia are positioning themselves as medical tourism hubs and each enjoys a reputation for providing wordclass treatments at internationally accredited hospitals - Thailand and Singapore respectively have 30 and 15 private hospitals accredited by Joint Commission International (JCI).
Needless to say, the stronger the region’s medical tourism sector, the higher demand will be for medical devices.
The medical tourism sector in these three countries attracted 4 million foreign patients who generated US$8 billion in revenue from 2011–12 as shown in Figure 1. Kasikorn Research Centre forecasts Thai private hospitals will conduct 2.81 million treatments for medical tourists contributing more than 100 billion baht (US$3.1 billion) to the local economy, an increase of 15 per cent from the previous year.
