More needs to be done to boost medical tourism, says Lee

Aiming higher: Lee trying out a boxing equipment with physiotherapist Derek Kung
after the launch. Looking on is Your Physio’s managing director Joshua Tan.

KUALA LUMPUR: More efforts will be put into spurring the nation’s medical tourism industry to achieve its target of RM4.2bil in revenue by the year 2020.

Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Lee Chee Leong said the nation was strategically located in the Asean region to tap the growing number of travellers seeking quality healthcare treatment.

“We are targeting one million health travellers this year which is expected to generate some RM1bil in revenue.

“The goal is to see healthcare travellers generating RM4.2bil by 2020,” he told repor­ters after launching Your Physio headquarters in Cheras yesterday.

He added that the number of healthcare travellers seeking medical treatment here has increased steadily over the last three years, with some 881,000 coming here in 2013, generating RM726mil in revenue.

This increased to 882,000 in 2014 genera­ting RM777mil in revenue and last year, 859,000 healthcare tourists brought in RM914mil.

Lee added that his ministry would liaise with relevant agencies such as the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida) to look at ways to promote the industry’s growth further.

Malaysia ranks among the top three destinations in Asia for medical tourism with travellers from Indonesia (62%), the Middle East (7.4%), India (3%), China (2.6%), Japan (2.6%) and Australia, New Zealand and Britain (2.5%).

-thestar online.