VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam is really a potential healthcare
service market with high population, increasingly high number of middle class
earners and the overloaded state owned hospitals. However, the number of
foreign invested projects in the healthcare sector remains modest.
A lot of preferences awaiting investors
According to Tran Quoc Khoa, a
senior official of the Ministry of Healthcare, Vietnam now has 137 operational
private hospitals, including six foreign invested hospitals, and about 30,000
consulting rooms.
Most of the private clinics have
small scale with just 50-60 beds, mostly located in big cities. Only 28
provinces have private clinics and one mountainous province – Yen Bai - has
private clinic.
The investment capital of private
hospitals is really modest. The six foreign invested hospitals have the initial
investment capital of 94 million dollars. Meanwhile, consulting rooms have the
capital between 200,000 and 2 million dollars. Foreign investors have not paid
their attention to the healthcare sector in Vietnam over the last 10 years.
According to Nguyen Ba Cuong,
Deputy Head of the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and
Investment, by July 2012, Vietnam had licensed 78 foreign invested projects in
the healthcare sector which have the total investment capital of 1.16 billion
dollars. These included 10 clinics, 66 consulting rooms and two pharmacy
companies.
The figures prove to be too
modest if compared with the great potentials of the Vietnamese market. A report
by EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit), the spending on healthcare services in
Vietnam would increase from 7 billion dollars in 2010 to 11.3 billion dollars
in 2015, which means the average growth rate of 10.3 percent per annum.
Especially, Vietnam keeps the
doors open widely for foreign investors, offering an open legal framework with
reasonable requirements.
According to Khoa, in principle,
foreigners, who practice as doctors in Vietnam have to be fluent in Vietnamese.
However, if they are not fluent in Vietnamese, they can hire interpreters.
There are three branches in the northern, central and southern regions which
are ready to organize tests and grant Vietnamese language skill certificates to
foreigners and interpreters.
The requirement proves to be very
easy, if noting that in other countries, all the people who practice as doctors
must be fluent in the indigenous languages.
Regarding the licensing to
consulting rooms, the current laws stipulate that Vietnam only grants license
once for the whole life of the projects. Meanwhile, in other countries, the
licenses always have fixed validity period.
The current Investment Law also
favors the investments in the healthcare sector. The investors in the field can
enjoy the low corporate income tax rate of 10 percent for the whole life of the
projects, after they can enjoy the tax exemption for 4 years and the 50 percent
tax reduction in the next years. Especially, they can enjoy lower land leasing
fee for at least seven years.
Meanwhile, local authorities lay
out the red carpet to welcome investors. Hanoi, for example, has decided to
reserve land for the two big healthcare centers in My Dinh and Gia Lam areas to
attract foreign investment.
But foreigners still turn away
Also according to Khoa, though
the number of Vietnamese clients is high, their financial capability remains
low, which does not allow them to afford the high healthcare service fees
charged by private clinics.
Tran Dai Thang from Lobby Vietnam
Club, said that it’s less profitable to invest in the healthcare sector than in
the real estate projects.
The money poured into real estate
projects can bring the profit higher by two or three folds, while investors do
not need to have huge investment capital. Meanwhile, the investment rate for
clinics is very high, up to billions of dollars, while it would take much time
to take back the investment capital.
Tran Thuy
Business & Investment Opportunities
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Healthcare and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN. We also propose Higher Education, as a bridge between educational structures and industries, by supporting international programmes. Many thanks for visiting www.yourvietnamexpert.com and/or contacting us at contact@yourvietnamexpert.com
No comments:
Post a Comment