From September 11-14, Vietnam’s largest healthcare industry event The Vietnam International Medical Exhibition - Pharmedi Vietnam 2024 was held in Ho Chi Minh City. Since 2006, the annual event has sought to showcase the latest medical products and technology while offering a platform to exchange best practices and access information among businesses. Joined by nearly 1,000 companies across 25 countries and territories, the exhibition featured innovative products from various healthcare sectors including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, supplements, and pharmaceutical packaging machinery. The primary exhibitors were from Vietnam, the U.S., Germany, Poland, the Republic of Korea, Japan, China, and Iran. This year’s expo highlighted diagnostics, treatment, smart medical devices, and environmentally friendly healthcare products. On the sidelines of the four-day expo, numerous conferences on the latest drug development, registration procedures, and equipment supply solutions for medical facilities also took place.
In addition to hosting the 2024 Pharmedi Expo, Vietnam has also demonstrated extensive efforts to align with international standards and enhance public-private partnerships (PPP) in the healthcare industry. While several private hospitals in Vietnam have obtained international accreditations from the Joint Commission International (JCI) of the U.S. or the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards International (ACHSI), public hospitals find it challenging to do so due to financial difficulties and lack of high-quality workforce. Therefore, the Vietnamese Government has encouraged hospitals to implement higher quality standards and invest in information technology and digital transformation to shift the healthcare landscape toward being more flexible and adaptive to international standards. Furthermore, the government has proposed a draft circular to attract PPP projects in healthcare by reducing the minimum investment threshold from 100 billion VND (4.16 million USD) to lower than 50 billion VND, thus enabling more projects to qualify for PPP financing.
