Finding the right strategy
Rubicon Strategy Group’s Benjamin Shobert showed to be far more cautious when it turns to leveraging «local knowledge», since he stated that «finding Chinese hospitals with money to spend will not be difficult over the next 5- 10 years. Finding medical professionals who are fully informed on why they need the specific technology an American firm is offering will be more difficult». Soon afterwards Shobert wondered: «What good is a new Magnetic resonance imaging in a newly built hospital if the site lacks trained radiologists, surgeons, therapeutics for follow-up treatment?». In order to answer the question analysts from the London-based research and consultancy firm PriceWaterhouse Coopers have identified a number of Chinese areas, counties and regions in which an investment could pay off in a reasonable period of time by calculating their Gross domestic product average rate. Top of the list are the Shanghai and Beijing townships where pro-capita Gdp amount to 10,000 Us dollars approximately; followed by some ten more provinces including Guangdong and Tainjin where the Gdp is comprised in a 6,000-10,000 dollars range. The largest part of the whole country can only rely on 3-6,000 dollars per person; and the two Southern counties of Yunnan and Guizhou would only display a 3,000 dollars or less pro-capita Gdp. Nonetheless Pwc underlined the constant growth that the healthcare expenditure has had on a household basis between 2002 and 2010. It ramped up from 430 renminbi (the local Chinese currency equivalent to 0,099 euro) to 872 but still the government’s target is to decrease «the individual’s share of out of pocket payments for healthcare services» which has already fallen «from 60% of total costs in 2001 to 35% of total costs in 2011» as PriceWaterhouse Coopers wrote. «The widely held belief», Shobert said, «is that if the Chinese government can provide basic healthcare coverage to its people, they will save less of their discretionary income and spend more».