Foreign direct investment and policies in the health sector in Asia and the Pacific 2022/2023
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the cracks in the current health sector. From 2019 to 2020, investment in the health-care sector dropped by 45 per cent and continued to decline in 2021 to 34 per cent in the first three quarters of 2022. Globally, greenfield investment in the health sector, from 2008 to 2021, fluctuated considerably, falling by 28 per cent between 2008 and 2012 and then increasing by 97 per cent to US$ 24 billion by 2021. Global peaks and falls have been replicated in the FDI received by countries in the Asian and Pacific region, while the share of global inward FDI in the health sector in Asia and the Pacific has declined over the period. Greenfield FDI in the health sector in Asia and the Pacific was 49 per cent lower in 2021 compared to 2008. However, prospects for 2022 look better, with an increase of 78 per cent in the first quarter of the year, compared to the same period in 2021.
