27-Aug-14 After piloting the first wholly foreign-owned hospital in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, China's Ministry of Commerce has announced that foreign investors will be allowed 100% ownership of hospitals in seven cities and provinces. Both greenfield and M&A investment will be permitted.

22-Aug-14 Turkey has increased its profile as a destination for medical tourism, becoming the sixth most visited medical tourism destination in the world. The Ministry of Health hopes to reach USD20 billion in medical tourism revenues by 2023, with a 15-20% annual growth rate. [image: Zeynel Cebeci]

21-Aug-14 The Chinese government has said it will pursue policies explicitly designed to favour domestic medical equipment manufacturers over foreign ones. The move accelerates the trend of foreign medical device manufacturers acquiring or joint venturing with Chinese companies, as well as moving additional medical device manufacturing capacity from their home countries to China.

3-Aug-14 Alibaba affiliate Alipay has announced many Chinese hospitals now accept Alipay for registering, paying for services and even checking clinical test results using a mobile device. Alipay is also planning to integrate EMR functionality into its platform.

22-Jul-14 Korea is one of the most rapidly ageing countries - currently it has the third lowest dependency ratio (economically active people per elderly person) of 5.26, behind only Mexico and Chile, but this will jump to only 1.96 by 2036 - the fifth highest - with huge implications for healthcare and all aspects of medtech.