PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has revealed that health spending is rising faster than GDP in nearly all emerging economies worldwide.
The trend is "spurring governments to look to the private sector for ways to get a better value for taxpayers’ money", it said, creating a multi-trillion global PPP market for investors.
By 2020, spending on health infrastructure among the OECD countries and BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) will increase to $397bn annually, up from $263bn today. However, the larger market for health PPPs will be in non-infrastructure spending, estimated to be more than $7.5 trillion annually, up from $5 trillion in 2010.
And although a number of landmark infrastructure projects have reached financial close in Sweden, Canada and Latin America this year, the market for private capital and expertise in health services is growing at a rapid rate."There is no country in the world where healthcare is financed entirely by government," said Ian Wootton, global PPP health leader at PwC.
"Each territory is looking for the appropriate balance of public and private resources and has different motivations for looking at PPP solutions whether it is to share risk, expand capacity, accelerate innovation or increase access."
Health PPPs in Spain have proven to save governments as much as 25% in healthcare costs, according to the report.