TEHRAN – Iranian Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare Ahmad Meidari has announced the drafting of a medical tourism development document aimed at strengthening the health-led tourism sector.
Meydari emphasized that strengthening tourism is one of the key strategies to promote regional development and national regional equity, the ministry’s public relations department wrote on Wednesday.
The minister emphasized that expanding medical tourism could play an important role in increasing employment opportunities, particularly in Iran’s border areas.
He also said that the early stages of the initiative will provide health services in the cities of Khorramshahr and Abadan in Kuzestan province, and further expansion of other border areas is planned.
Meidari further elaborates that the development of medical tourism documents will be carried out in cooperation with several government agencies, including the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Crafts, as well as state authorities, foreign representatives and ambassadors. I did. Lives in Tehran.
Special attention has been paid to the participation of the neighbouring and coastal states of the Persian Gulf, and he explained that the private sector plays a central role in its implementation.
He emphasized that the private sector is responsible for providing health services within the framework of health tourism, but that the government will primarily serve as facilitators in the process.
6 billion euros watched vision for medical tourism revenue
Last September, Mohammad Reza Vez Mahdavi, chairman of Iran’s Health Economics and Science Association, announced that the Islamic Republic could generate 6 billion euros per year from medical tourism with appropriate plans. He also highlighted his vision to become a healthcare hub for West Asia in the coming years. This includes plans to export 1 billion euros of vaccines and medical devices each year.
Available data suggests that Iran’s current annual medical exports are 200 million euros. According to a report released by the Iranian Ministry of Health in August 2023, Iran receives around 1 million medical tourists each year, and foreign patients seek treatment in a variety of specialties. “One million foreign patients are treated in Iran every year,” the report said, highlighting the growing influence of the country in the global health sector.
Neighborhood countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Oman, Bahrain, Armenia and Tajikistan make up Iran’s major sources of health tourism.
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