The Indian healthcare sector is growing at a very fast pace. This is mainly due to the increasing quality of healthcare provided in the country and the huge rise in the number of medical tourists to the country, which has increased more than ten-fold since 2000. India offers world-class healthcare professionals, nursing care, super-specialties in cardiology, neuro-surgery, orthopaedics and eye surgery at a treatment cost almost one-sixth of that in the developed countries.

India’s major corporates have set up state-of-the-art private hospitals and many of these have taken international accreditations. Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi; Apollo Hospital, Chennai; Apollo Hospital, Hyderabad; Wockhardt Hospital, Mumbai and Shroff Eye Hospital, Mumbai have taken accreditation from Joint Commission International (JCI), the leading healthcare accreditation agency in the US. The British Standards Institute has now accredited the Delhi-based Escorts Hospital.

The demand for medical instruments and accessories is increasing with the growing number of specialty and super specialty hospitals in the country. India continues to import most of its medical equipment requirements.

Health Insurance is gaining importance in the country. The FDI limit in health insurance is expected to be raised from 26% to 49%, easing the way for foreign investment in the sector.

Retail healthcare is expected to be driven more by preventive health. Major groups like Apollo, Manipal. Fortis, Dabur, Gold Shield, Futures Group, Reliance, AVB, Bharti and Max are joining the retail healthcare rush.

India has become an important healthcare destination and the sector is attracting investments from a large number of local private players and global investors/institutions. The number of hospitals and medical laboratories are increasing with the growing inflow of foreign capital in the country.

The number of units involved in the production of medical equipments and accessories is also growing in the country. In fact, India is attracting a large number of global producers of medical electronics equipment like Siemens, GE, Larsen & Toubro and Philips Medical Systems to set up manufacturing or assembly bases in the country.