The Impact of Trade Liberalization on the Health Sector in Developing Countries

Meliha Ener

Faculty of Biga Economics and Management Science
Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University; Biga/Ç kale, Turkey
melihaener@comu.edu.tr

Abstract

Until recently, most of the developing countries have not had markets in health care sector,as in other service sectors. In these countries, the great part of health care services is provided and financed by governments or non-profit organizations. To realize market-driven and tradeable health services, The General Agreement on Trade in Services(GATS) which is one of free trade agreements of the World Trade Organization(WTO) aims to open up this service sector to international competition .Private sector enlargement in provision and finance of health care services is established as gradual downsizing the public involvement occurs.During GATS 2000 talks,it has been suggested that commercializing the health care facilities will yield benefits for foreign investors to Access to domestic markets as domestic companies. In order to diminish budgetary deficits, private sector has a great importance in these countries trying to perform market-based financial model for health system.