Imports & Exports

Currently, Pakistan is importing more Medical and Pharmaceutical products than it is Producing. This shows that in Pakistan there is a high demand of Medical products. Pakistan also produces medical instruments and exports them.

Exports

In 2020, Pakistan exported $393 million worth of medical instruments, making it the 35th largest exporter of medical instruments in the world.

In the same year, Medical Instruments was the 12th most exported product in Pakistan.

Pakistan also exported more than $500 million worth of medical equipment to various countries in 2021, an increase of more than 40 percent compared to 2020.

 

Supply

Pakistani surgical instrument manufacturers mainly produce Class I (Bandages, Handheld surgical instruments etc.) instruments and some Class IIb (Intraocular lenses, orthopedic nails, and plates, etc.) instruments.

The Pakistani surgical instrument industry is a highly fragmented industry with a strong export orientation, operating in the city of Sialkot in the Punjab province of Pakistan.

 

Imports

Pakistan imported medical equipment worth more than $1.4 billion in 2021, while China, Turkey, and Italy accounted for the major share of exports of medical equipment products to Pakistan.

 

 

Demand

There is a growing demand for diagnostic and laboratory equipment in Pakistan. Due to the global pandemic, the demand for protective equipment and vaccines has increased tremendously.

 

l  Market demand for the devices listed below is expected to grow:

l  Respirators (HS 9019)

l  Monitors, fans and related instruments

l  Personal protective equipment, dental veterinary instruments and equipment (HS 9018)

l  Orthopedic devices, hearing aids (HS 9021)

l  X-rays, radiography/radiotherapy apparatus (HS 9022)

l  Used and second-hand x-ray machines, dialysis machines, anesthesia machines

l  Health IT/Telemedicine/eHealth

 

Elasticity

Elasticity is the measure of how change in price effects demand and supply of health care.

 

Elasticity of Medical Demand

Price elasticity estimates how consumer demand changes when prices change. For example, the price elasticity of a medical service is defined as the percentage change in the quantity of medical care demanded divided by the percentage change in the price of the same commodity. Most academics believe that the price elasticity of medical services is between 0 and -1. This means that if prices increase by 10%, the demand for medical services decreases, but by less than 10%. This means that medical goods are inelastic.

 

Elasticity of Medical Supply

The supply side is also problematic. First, some healthcare suppliers have significant market power. A bigger problem is that some healthcare providers, such as hospitals, are either government-controlled or non-profit institutions. The standard economic approach assumes that firms seek to maximize profits, but government or non-profit hospitals may not have profit maximization as their objective.The supply of demand is not much effected by price in case of Healthcare so this means it’s inelastic.

 

Note:health-care prices are not necessarily determined by supply and demand. Again, the government has a significant influence on prices