International Trade in Services.pdf - DSpace at Khazar University

Health without Borders 125
providers (since the training curricula for the nurses is kept separate). Some foreign
governments have also offered to sponsor some of these dedicated schools in
developing countries, which would contribute to reducing the risks of public
resource leakages even further. In the case of South Africa, some private health
service providers have concluded agreements with foreign health care networks to
provide short-term opportunities for their staff abroad, while controlling returns
(personnel are prohibited from working in the U.K. system for two years after the
completion of their temporary assignment within the U.K. branch of the South
African group) (see box 4.10).
What Should Be Done to Foster Trade
in Health Services
Increasing trade in health services could be beneficial to both importing and
exporting countries and in the high-income developing countries, as well as in the
poorest ones. A number of conditions are attached to success, however. The market
is competitive, and not all countries have a comparative advantage in health
services; countries interested in entering and contesting the market need to assess
carefully their resources and design trade promotion strategies that have domestic
and international dimensions.
The section above reviews the potential benefits and risks of trade opening
from a public health perspective, suggesting accompanying measures to make the
most of trade. This section consists of a checklist of questions to be raised and
measures to be adopted by governments in designing effective trade strategies in
the health sector.
Trade does not take place in a vacuum. In the same way that trade alone is not
sufficient to fix a country’s health system, a country cannot presume to compete
on the international health services market if its domestic health system is dysfunctional.
A country cannot suddenly decide to export health services the same
way it could decide to export other basic goods, such as asparagus or freshly cut
flowers, if only because of the high level of human expertise and technology
required. There are prerequisites for trade in health services, and a number of
elements have been identified that make a country attractive, for example, for
medical tourists or foreign investors.
Country endowments: Strengths (how to exploit them)
and weaknesses (how to remedy them)
In determining whether a country could enter and compete on the world health
services market, a typical first step is the assessment of the country’s strengths and