Russia healthcare sector calls for expansion of ties with Iran

Russian health officials raised the issues in a meeting with Abdolnaser Azadbakht, the Director General of the Medical and Laboratory Equipment Industries of Iran’s Trade Ministry in Tehran.

The meeting was held in line with efforts to boost effective trade communication between the two countries. Joint investment, technology transfer and facilitating product registration were among the issues discussed in the meeting.

Both sides also put emphasis on accelerating bilateral export exchanges by facilitating product registration requirements.

The Iranian official briefed the Russian delegation on Iran’s capabilities and capacities in producing diverse medical supplies. Azadbakht called for establishing a joint Iran-Russia trade office and a consultation center for product registration in Tehran.

It was decided that the Russian side will provide the Iranian Trade Ministry officials with a list of required medical items along with their respective technical specifications. Officials from the Medical and Laboratory Equipment Industries of Iran’s Trade Ministry will discuss the issues during expert-level workgroups and prepare the grounds for inking trade MoUs and agreements with Russia via the participation of the private sector.

According to Iranian media reports, Iran holds a share of one percent (about $5 billion) in the global market for medical equipment of approximately $500 billion, but the country has the potential to increase the share, according to the statistics of the Ministry of Health.

In 2018, the National Medical Device Directorate reported that the Iranian medical equipment market was worth $2.5 billion, 30 percent of which belonged to over 1,000 domestic firms.

A total of 227 knowledge-based firms are supplying medical equipment for health centers across the country, according to the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology, Tehran Times reported last month.

According to the report, Iranian companies producing medical equipment export their products to 54 countries around the globe.