World Bank urges overhaul in Chinese healthcare

 22-Jul-16, The Wall Street Journal

China needs to take critical steps to overhaul its health-care sector as soaring health expenditures will be difficult to sustain in a slowing economy, according to a World Bank report.

Image: How Hwee Young / European Pressphoto Agency

The two-year study conducted by the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization and three Chinese ministries found that without an overhaul, health expenditures in China would grow at 9.4% a year between 2015 to 2020, while gross domestic product is projected to grow at an annual pace of about 6.5%. Health costs, which represented 5.6% of GDP in 2015, would take up more than 9% of GDP in 2035.

China is facing many of the challenges of prosperous societies, with an aging population and a rise in chronic diseases, increasing the urgency for an overhaul, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said.

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