ASEAN: Regional Trends in Economic Integration, Export ... - USITC

CHAPTER 6
Healthcare: Healthcare Services
Healthcare Overview 1
The ASEAN Roadmap for Integration of the Healthcare Sector (Roadmap) covers five
industries, four of which involve healthcare products. However, increased trade and
industry development are making healthcare services an increasingly important sector of
the ASEAN healthcare sector. For this reason, this chapter begins with a brief survey of
the healthcare products covered by the Roadmap, but focuses primarily on healthcare
services. Comparable data on trade and investment in healthcare services do not exist in
the same way as for healthcare goods; hence, the trade and other data presented in this
overview pertain only to healthcare goods, unless otherwise noted. The discussion of
trade in healthcare services has been approached using the number of foreign patients that
have received treatment as a proxy for cross-border trade, and data on individual
investment deals have been used in the absence of aggregate investment statistics.
The healthcare priority sector, 2 as defined by the Roadmap, has grown in the past five
years due to growing demand for healthcare goods and services, both inside and outside
the ASEAN region. In 2008, trade within ASEAN of healthcare goods covered by the
Roadmap 3 reached an estimated $2 billion (table 2.4). 4 In that same year, the world
exported $9.3 billion of such goods to ASEAN and imported $10.2 billion of healthcare
goods from ASEAN countries. Intra-ASEAN exports of these goods increased at an
average annual rate of approximately 23 percent per year, compared to 30 percent annual
growth in world imports of such goods from ASEAN.
ASEAN members have made limited progress towards regional integration of the
healthcare goods sectors, as measured against the Roadmap. Measures set forth in the
Roadmap that have thus far been achieved through the integration effort, which is led by
Singapore, include progress in developing regional regulatory standards for healthcare
goods (a primary focus of the Roadmap) and lowering barriers to trade. 5 When fully
integrated, the region will have common standards for each of the four healthcare goods
subsectors; presently, development of ASEAN-wide standards and regulatory
harmonization is limited to the cosmetics industry. 6 However, members have reiterated
1 See app. F for a list of the Harmonized System numbers covered under this priority sector. Healthcare
services do not have Harmonized System numbers, and thus are not included in this list.
2 The healthcare priority sector, as designated by the ASEAN Secretariat, is categorized into five
subsectors: healthcare services; cosmetics; medical devices and equipment; pharmaceuticals; and traditional
medicines and health supplements. The priority sector product basket (excluding healthcare services)
comprises 245 goods, almost half of which are pharmaceutical products.
3 The use of the term “healthcare goods” is understood to refer only to those healthcare goods covered by
the Roadmap, which are only a portion of all healthcare goods traded.
4 Intra-ASEAN trade volumes are estimates based on available import trade data and may be undervalued.
Brunei, Burma, Indonesia, and Laos do not report trade data. Cambodia did not report trade data for 2005–08,
and the Philippines did not report trade data for 2004–06.
5 ASEAN Secretariat, “Appendix 1,” n.d.; Gross and Minot, “ASEAN Medical Device Regulatory
Integration,” January 1, 2009.
6 The Agreement on the Harmonized Cosmetic Regulatory Scheme was signed in 2005 and is in varying
stages of implementation among member countries. Badan Standardisasi Nasional, “Indonesia Will Soon
Ratify ASEAN Cosmetic Directive,” September 9, 2009.
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