Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Wednesday that rapid nationalisation of the health sector was as critical as that of defence, Duvar news site reported .
"Turkey needs a rapid nationalisation, localisation in the health sector," Erdoğan said, speaking at the University of Health Sciences in Ankara.
“Our country is dependent on imports in pharmaceuticals and healthcare equipment. We have to overcome this,” said Erdoğan, adding that Turkey had the required human capital to produce its tomography, ultrasonography and MRI machines.
Turkey had to establish a national infrastructure to break the chains of what he said were the existing monopolies in the pharmaceutical and healthcare equipment sectors in the world, Erdoğan said.
In Turkey, imports make up almost 85 percent of the country’s 2.6 billion-lira healthcare equipment sector, according to an action plan prepared by the Ministry of Health in 2017.