{"id":277348,"date":"2020-07-23T16:45:48","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T19:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=277348"},"modified":"2020-07-24T13:25:33","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T16:25:33","slug":"opportunities-in-healthcare-available-in-algeria-morocco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/opportunities-in-healthcare-available-in-algeria-morocco\/","title":{"rendered":"Opportunities in healthcare available in Algeria, Morocco"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Great opportunities are available in Algeria and Morocco for the Brazilian healthcare industry, particularly in medical-hospital products. The Brazilian Medical and Dental Device Manufacturers Association (Abimo) hosted a webinar this Thursday (23) on the topic, in partnership with the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil) and the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce<\/strong> (ABCC).<\/p>\n

The webinar featured Abimo Market Access coordinator Rafael Cavalcante, Apex-Brasil Market Intelligence analysts Igor Gomes da Silva and Pedro Henrique de Souza Netto, and ABCC senior economist Sotirios Denis Ghinis and International Business consultant Karen Mizuta.<\/p>\n

According to Rafael Cavalcante, Algeria is a big market with a public health system similar to Brazil\u2019s state-run SUS, and there isn\u2019t much competition, since access is difficult and domestic production is small scale. Challenges include paperwork, registration, and international certification requirements. \u201cThis could be an issue for companies whose products are not certified as required,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce a company gets past these issues, it will find a big and relatively competition-free market. Attention is needed when it comes to payments: the CAD [Cash Against Documents] system means transfers take 30 to 90 days to clear. The country is struggling with dwindling oil revenues and its economy remains largely oil- and gas-based, but this should be viewed as an opportunity, because Algeria needs to diversify its economy by finding other sources of revenue and looking into other possibilities in trade. This means that the market will tend to become more and more open in the years ahead,\u201d Cavalcante explained.<\/p>\n

Another plus is the growing relevance of private sector players in Algeria\u2019s healthcare market. \u201cGoing into a market such as Algeria demands planning and patience, but once an exporter finally manages to get in, it can potentially be a very rewarding experience,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Morocco <\/strong><\/p>\n

Studies conducted by Abimo and Apex-Brasil have shown that Morocco is a business-friendly market with a growing middle class, low international certification requirements, and an appealing profile for Brazilian suppliers. Challenges here include fierce competition from other exporters and registration issues that require attention. Unlike Algeria, this is a much laxer market, and there\u2019 not much in the way of homegrown competition from health device manufacturers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge when it comes to Morocco is foreign competition,\u201d said Cavalcante. He notes that European products are taken as benchmarks, and this could spell an advantage for Brazilian items, which are less costly. Pictured above is a hospital in Morocco.<\/em><\/p>\n

Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sotirios Ghinis gave an overview of healthcare industry trade in Arab countries. Those countries imported USD 16 billion between them in medical and hospital equipment last year, down 2% from 2018, the leading suppliers being China, the United States, and Germany. Brazil ranked 44th<\/sup>, having supplied mostly plastic items, mechanical devices, surgical instruments, diagnostic reagents, and needles and catheters.<\/p>\n

USD 16 million worth of healthcare industry products got shipped from Brazil to the Arab countries in 2019, up 21% from 2018. Arab countries as a whole were the 14th<\/sup> biggest export destination for the Brazilian industry. \u201cConsidering the size of Arab populations and the fact that Arab governments are interested in developing and in many cases universalizing access to healthcare, this is a big market that Brazilian enterprises can tap into,\u201d said Ghinis.<\/p>\n

The five top importers of medical and hospital products were also the five leading importers of product from Brazil \u2013 Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria.<\/p>\n

Karen Mizuta gave a few tips for doing business with the Arabs. \u201cThose interested in selling to Arab countries must be aware of cultural aspects that might interfere with negotiations,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Algeria and Morocco are Arabic-speaking countries where French is the official second language, while the Gulf countries speak English. \u201cIt\u2019s important to have a communication channel, which could be achieved by relying on interpreters, so that negotiations will not suffer,\u201d she argued. Mizuta also discussed the Ramadan period and the fact that the weekend is on Friday and Saturday in most Arab countries.<\/p>\n

Apex-Brasil and the pandemic<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pedro Henrique de Souza Netto presented Apex-Brasil\u2019s intelligence panels \u2013 a new product for Brazilian businesses, available free of charge on the Apex-Brasil website, and including sector-specific studies on investment, market access, trade, and opportunity maps. He discussed trade amid Covid-19.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we all know, Covid-19 had a particularly severe impact on global trade. The June report from the World Trade Organization (WHO) estimates that global trade will be about 13% smaller this year than in the last one,\u201d he said. According toNetto, this should be the second sharpest drop since the 2008 crisis. In South America, trade is expected to plummet by 13% to 32%. Netto also said that exports of medical and hospital products from Brazil declined year-to-date through June and especially during quarter two, which saw the pandemic begin to spread across Brazil. Sales to Algeria and Morocco went up marginally nonetheless.<\/p>\n

Igor Gomes da Silva showcased Apex-Brasil\u2019s opportunity map. \u201cThe map is designed to deliver insight into opportunities for Brazilian enterprises in different markets and for different products,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fadel Senna\/AFP<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An online event on the topic was hosted on Thursday (23) by Brazil\u2019s Medical and Dental Device Manufacturers Association (Abimo) in partnership with Apex-Brasil and the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2305,"featured_media":277296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[9859,16353,13611,27236,2034,9820,16354,14777,11618,16355,27243],"class_list":{"0":"post-277348","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-arab-chamber-en","9":"tag-abcc","10":"tag-abimo-en","11":"tag-abimo-en-2","12":"tag-algeria","13":"tag-apex-brasil-en","14":"tag-dental","15":"tag-hospital-en","16":"tag-medical","17":"tag-morcco","18":"tag-saude-en"},"wps_subtitle":"An online event on the topic was hosted on Thursday (23) by Brazil\u2019s Medical and Dental Device Manufacturers Association (Abimo) in partnership with Apex-Brasil and the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}