TEHRAN: Iran and Pakistan discussed ways to enhance cooperation on medical equipment during a webinar held on October 2, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Monday.
The webinar was attended by the head of the Healthcare Devices Association of Pakistan Masood Ahmed, Consul General of the Islamic Republic Hassan Nourian, and representatives of more than 30 Iranian companies active in the field of medical equipment production and supply.
According to the Foreign Office, Ahmed announced readiness to use Iranian medical products, stating that the association will cooperate and support the registration of Iranian products in Pakistan and the joint production.
He added that Pakistan imported more than $1.4 billion of medical equipment in 2021, while China, Turkey, and Italy had the major share of the export of medical equipment products to Pakistan.
Pakistan has also exported more than $500 million worth of medical equipment to different countries, which has grown by more than 40 per cent compared to 2020, Ahmed said.
The head of HDA invited Iranian companies to attend the Health Asia 2022 exhibition, which will be held in Karachi from October 13 to 15.
This three-day annual event, which began in 2004, is the biggest annual gathering of the relevant industry stakeholders and the most important medical event in Pakistan.
Iran holds a share of one per cent (about $5 billion) in the global market for medical equipment of approximately $500 billion, but the country has the potential to increase the share, according to the statistics of the Ministry of Health.
In 2018, the National Medical Device Directorate reported that the Iranian medical equipment market was worth $2.5 billion, 30 per cent of which belonged to over 1,000 domestic firms.
On a global scale, 56 per cent of 500,000 medical equipment items available in the world market have Iranian versions. In pharmaceuticals, around 70 per cent of Iran’s $4.5 billion markets are domestic products and, in 2018, 97 per cent of pharmaceuticals consumed in the country were manufactured locally.
In 2018, 67 per cent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used to produce drugs in Iran were made locally.
A total of 227 knowledge-based firms are supplying medical equipment for health centres across the country, according to the vice presidency for Science and Technology.
Iranian companies producing medical equipment export their products to 54 countries across the world.
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