HEALTH SECTOR OF PAKISTAN Health Asia - International Exhibition & Conferences

The Pharmaceutical industry has achieved the ever-increasing export performance figures of medicines to over 30 different countries in Africa, Middle East, Far East, Europe, CIS States, Russian Federation, etc, Presently, there are about 387 pharmaceutical manufacturing companies with a break-up of 357 national or Pakistani owned and licensed manufacturing units and 30 licensed international subsidiaries of well known world-wide based pharmaceutical corporations, which are meeting around 80% of the countrys requirement. Total capital investment in this sector is approximately Rs 21.12 billion. In recent years, the Government of Pakistan has substantially simplified the regulatory environment for the setting up of a business operation. The Patent Ordinance 2002 has been made TRIPS compliant to include granting of patents to pharmaceutical products, which will encourage new investments in the sector. There are about 906 hospitals, 4554 Dispensaries, 5290 Basic Health Units and 552 Rural Health Centers. The availability of hospital beds in all medical facilities has been estimated at 98,684, which comes to a population bed ratio of 1,536 persons per bed. The figures available about the medical facilities clearly indicate the need for a further expansion in health facilities. The economy of Pakistan is growing faster than ever. Exports are increasing at over 20% per annum and have surpassed the budgeted 12.2 billion mark. Remittances from expatriate Pakistanis have increased over 60% reaching the present level of over US $ 4.2 billion annually. The foreign exchange reserves of the Country are at an all-time high of over US $ 12 billion at present. The industrial growth has been over 8% and the overall growth in GDP has been over 6.4%. The Karachi Stock Exchange has performed better than all the stock exchanges of the world where it has gone from 1300 points to over 4200 points in one year and crossed the 5600 points limit. The PSDP outlay for the forthcoming year has been estimated at PKR 202 billion as compared to

last years estimation of PKR 160 billion. The Government has also allocated PKR 3,254 million for Health Affairs & Services in the next years budget. These steps demonstrate the seriousness of the present Government concerning health infrastructure development in the Country and for this reason we have identified numerous potential investment opportunities in the Countrys health sector that will be promoted at Health Asia - International Conferences and Exhibition.