The Malaysian Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) is hoping to make Malaysia a niche fertility hub in the region, as it attracts Chinese couples eager to enlarge their families.

In an interview with The Edge Financial Daily, MHTC chief executive officer Sherene Azli said that following the scrapping of China’s one-child policy in October 2015, an estimated 90 million couples in China were looking to conceive a second child and from the number, 40 million were over the ages of 40.

She said Malaysia could become an attractive venue for couples who may be looking for fertility treatment, adding that the country needed only to capture a mere 1% of this market of 40 million to boost its medical tourism industry.

“Malaysia only came out of its shell in 2011.

“So rather than playing catch-up, what we are doing now is trying to carve out our own niche,” she was quoted as saying by The Edge Financial Daily.

“For example, our in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment success rate is among the highest in the world, at about 66% compared with the world average of 50%.

“Because of that, we feel that Malaysia is in a very good position to position itself as the fertility hub for the region,” Sherene said.

The report said Malaysia welcomed 921,000 healthcare travellers in 2016, generating RM1.123 billion in revenue.

With the cost of IVF treatments reaching up to RM14,000 per patient, Sherene said she was confident the industry could double that revenue by 2020.

“For medical tourism, there is plenty of room for growth. In 2016, the estimated revenue per medical tourist was just under RM1,300,” she said.

“Cardiology treatments also typically involve higher-value procedures,” it said.

Sherene said that MHTC was investing one-fifth of the RM30 million allocated by the government for the year to target the Chinese market. – March 19, 2018.