India’s healthcare sector to grow at a subdued pace in 2012: Fitch

02 Feb 2012 Evaluate

High cost of funds may lead to a hold back in investments, but India’s healthcare sector will continue to grow in 2012, at a subdued pace. This will happen due to the wide gap between health care demand and its supply. Though demand for health care is still large in India, its supply is likely to be affected due to shortages of doctors and medical staff.

The global rating agency Fitch, in its annual report titled '2012 Outlook: India Health Care' has said that firms in the healthcare space will see revenues go up in 2012 but may also see lower profit margins due to higher costs. This is expected to affect the smaller players more, especially those who have carried out debt-led expansion in the past one or two years and are yet to reach meaningful occupancy levels.

The report said that factors contributing to the slow growth will be below-par healthcare infrastructure, especially in Tier II and Tier III cities, increasing lifestyle-related health problems, changing demographics, rising disposable income and insurance penetration, and increasing government support and medical tourism.

Further, as per the report, Tier II and Tier III cities are likely to attract greater investments due to competition and rising real estate costs in big cities, where lack of healthcare services, cheaper real estate and lesser competition in smaller cities will be the main growth drivers. These cities will witness an increase in bed capacity, ancillary industries like medical technologies and diagnostics.

Moreover, the report also said that as more hospital beds become operational in 2012, revenue of firms will also grow. However, specialty services like cardiology, neurology, joint replacements etc, are likely to attract most of the investments in bigger cities. It is expected that the sector will touch $238.76 billion by 2020, as the Indian healthcare industry has witnessed rapid growth in the past.

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