Healthcare and elderly care is very important to us all. Many delegations, especially from China, come to visit us here in Sweden and Scandinavia to see how we have solved public services including public and private healthcare. Just in Sweden we have some 125 hospitals, 1300 healthcare centres and some 3800 elderly care centres taking care of a population of just over 10 million. That is not including all dentist and cosmetics health procedures taking place in Sweden alone. There are 20 to 22 million beauty procedures taken place in Sweden each year, of which 25,000 to 30.000 are cosmetic surgery.
Medical tourism is a developing industry in Asia. We see Malaysia and Indonesia focusing on Muslim clients, Taiwan mainly focus on China even though many nationalities visit Taiwan for good healthcare. Then we have Thailand with an extra focus on long life science and cosmetic surgery. In China elderly care is also a very interesting growth market. Not so long ago we had a Chinese delegation visiting Sweden to see what they could learn or find partners for a special project in the Guizhou province. This was the Guizhou Tourism and Culture Industry Development Corporation that was looking for partners for a project they called Sun Valley. They was projecting 5 star apartments for some 200 000 elderly in China and that would create a 1 million or larger city focusing on elderly care.
The Guizhou delegation wanted to look for expertise and technology in Sweden but also elsewhere as they were travelling the whole world looking for partners. There is already a system of caregivers and private hospitals in China and we did not see how they could attract people with money moving from Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong to move to Guizhou. They already have 5 star apartments and local caregivers. We did not see this as a project for Scandinavian Healthcare Companies or Venture Capitalist but there are also other new interesting projects developing in China. One of them is Lecheng, a small town on tropical island Hainan in China.
Lecheng on the island Hainan,
a new Healthcare Hub in China
What China now is considering is a international pilot zone for medical tourism in Lecheng. Chinese Government estimate medical tourism is expected to bring in 680 billion USD in 2017 worldwide. More then 500.000 Chinese goes abroad for healthcare and this can quickly grow to 1-2 million customers. This project is targeted to compete with Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand in Asia. The project is supposed to be in an area of about 20 km2 surrounded by the tropical scenery of Hainan. What we did not see attractive in Guizhou, one of the poorest provinces in China, is Hainan who already is well known as a tourist destination. They want to build state-of-the-art facilities and they will need foreign innovation, know-how and equipment. This is more interesting for Scandinavian Healthcare and attractive of medical tourism. The Chinese Government has said they will offer a number of preferential policies under which foreign companies will be able to set up medical organizations in the zone and foreign doctors will be allowed to practice there for up to three years. Main businesses of this project in China will involve treatment of tumours, plastic surgery, leading stem cells research, health management and rehabilitation. Here we see opportunities for Scandinavian Healthcare Companies.
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