1. Overview of the Health Industry
One of the fastest growing sectors both in Turkey and the world, the health sector is expecting a lot of innovations and investment opportunities according to the Turkey 2023 vision.
When we looked at the health sector in the world, we can see that the increase in spending has been consistent and due to essential health spending, the sector maintained its growth even in 2008’s economic crisis.
In 2013, a total of 6,8 trillion dollars was spent on health industry across the world. Medicine purchases, which accommodates for the biggest part of health expenditures, counted for almost 1,23 trillion dollars. The high expenditures on health industry show that the sector will most likely keep growing in future and it is foreseen that the health business will enter into international markets and there will be a %5,2 growth per year between 2014-2018, reaching a total of 9,3 trillion dollars.
2. Health Sector in Turkey and Foresights
The health sector in Turkey grows parallel to increase in accessibility, technological advancements, increase in purchasing power in some areas and some endorsing events for the sector.
With private sector’s involvement and health industries transformation on the last couple of years, health services have become accessible to more people. It is expected that the health industry will grow 7% per year for the next three years, adding up to approximately %25. The biggest increases will come from the hospital and medicinal spending.
By 2017, The Health Ministry is planning to build 4 “Health Free Zones” and 2 hospital ships to endorse investments on the sector. It is expected that the health industry, which is generated around 2,5 billion dollars in 2014, to generate 20-25 billion dollars in 2023 with the implementations of Health Free Zones especially targeted towards international patients. Furthermore, by starting production in Turkey for high-tech goods with high added values, it is expected that there will be a 23,3 billion dollars’ worth of local production and fewer imports.
It is foreseen that advancements in e-commerce, biotech products, digital applications (tracking health conditions through wearable devices, remote checkups, robot involved surgery etc.) will help the health industry to grow. With an increase in merges and acquisitions in Turkey health industry, while representative medicine chests and warehouses stand out from outsourcing, there has been an increase in services with added value. Furthermore, it is expected that there will be an increase in research and development cooperation between firms and academic entities.
*The exchange rate (Dollars/Tl) was 1,91 for 2013 and 2,19 for 2014
