New Zealand (NZ) and India could work together to tackle healthcare issues such as diabetes and promote remote medical care, according to Gavin Young, consul general, New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE).
“India is leapfrogging in telemedicine, IT and mobile revolution and has huge opportunity while New Zealand leads in informatics, medical technology and medical devices. So,we are looking forward to work together in providing the best solutions,” he said.
He was speaking on the sidelines of the ‘3rd International Conference on Transforming Healthcare with IT 2012’, here recently.
“Many New Zealand-based technology-driven healthcare companies have developed solutions for diabetes and other related disease, cardiovascular and sleep apnoea. Most of them are looking at entering India. Currently, around 300 New Zealand companies across sectors are present in India,” he said.
Some New Zealand-based companies, which have already entered India, include, MTICS that has partnered with MedVarsity, a medical e-learning initiative by the Apollo Hospital Group, to train surgeons and Medtech Global, a company specialising in digitisation of patient records, in partnership with the Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Centre in Delhi.
On the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between New Zealand and India, Young said, “The signing of the FTA between the two countries may take sometime as a few more rounds of negotiations are yet to take place. The round-8 discussion took place in June this year.”
Once the FTA is signed, the trade partnership is expected to double over the next two years to reach $3 billion.
