Five areas of opportunity in Asean healthcare

South-east Asia's major economies are facing an unprecedented rise in healthcare cost in the coming decade that will pose a major challenge to strained public health budgets. But this challenge also offers prospects for plugging gaps in the healthcare sector, according to a report by corporate strategy consulting firm Solidiance.

Rising healthcare costs, demographic changes

In nearly all Asean nations the cost of healthcare per capita has been rising faster than GDP per capita, meaning the healthcare burden is growing faster than economies' ability to sustain these expenditures.

Asean is also undergoing major demographic shifts. Nearly all Asean-6 nations - Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam - show either negative or close-to-zero growth for the youngest part of their population (age 0-14). While the working-age population (age 15-64) in all nations except Singapore is still growing, growth in the retirement age population (age 65 and above) is outpacing them rapidly, with relative growth rates three to 10 times higher than the working age population.

At current growth rates, the Asean-6's estimated 2017 total healthcare spending of about US$420 billion will reach US$740 billion in 2025, an added burden of US$320 billion.

What should governments do?

The Solidiance report said governments need to accelerate the development of their healthcare systems in terms of both quantity and quality. They can do this by:

Companies can fill the gaps

The changing healthcare landscape in Asean will create valuable opportunities for the private sector - especially for health services, medicine and care equipment, age care services and products, as well as fitness and health programmes.

Companies can provide technologies and services to help ease key problems in the healthcare sector, for example: