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Global Health Econ Sustain Imports of essential medical products

the impact of recent trade measures on least developed
countries. Their results indicated that global cooperation
and support play an important role in bolstering health
systems in these countries.
The WTO has also published a series of papers,
2
which provide valuable information on the impact of
the pandemic on international relations. These studies
explicitly pertain to medical products: they analyzed
the business of vaccines, both in terms of development
and global distribution (WTO, 2020a); they assessed the
related export bans and restrictions (WTO, 2020b); and Figure 1. The trend of EU-27 trade in medical products.
they studied how these products were treated based on the
regional trade agreements (WTO, 2020c). Similarly, the Finally, extra-EU import of vehicles and furniture,
WTO (2020d) and Dugiel & Mikołajek-Gocejna (2020) medical devices, and medical consumables had increased
examined the activities of the European institutions in during the pandemic, while intra-EU imports had
tackling the negative effects triggered by the collapse of decreased (Figure 4). Medical devices are produced with
international trade both within the EU and globally. advanced technology, with very powerful suppliers in
2.2. Conceptual framework the United States, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom
(OECD, 2020b). While medical consumables registered
The international trade in the analyzed medical products strong positive growth in intra-EU trade in the period 2017
has some special features that explain its behavior in – 2019), the COVID-19 pandemic had in turn amplified
times of intense demand. During the span of 2015 – 2020, the trade with suppliers from outside the EU.
according to statistical data from Eurostat, the supply and
demand of these products displayed an upward trend, with The analysis of all medical products revealed that the
an increasingly large positive trade balance, due to the intra-EU import volume exceeded the extra-EU volume
growing gap between exports and imports (Figure 1). over the entire period analyzed (Figure 5). These statistics
reflect the effectiveness of existing trade agreements
The present empirical study focuses on the analysis of
extra- and intra-EU imports, classified by type of product. among the EU countries, which fosters the development
of this type of trade.
The analysis by specific product type did not reveal such a
uniform trend. First, the analysis focused on the products Overall, there was a slight increase in 2020 in extra-EU
that registered negative growth in imports in 2020, namely, trade in medical goods. This may be due to the uncontrolled
test kits and oxygen therapy equipment (Figure 2). This demand for these products, which had resulted in a slow-
decline was the most pronounced in extra-EU imports of down of trade with member states to meet domestic
test kits (−9.88%) and intra-EU imports of oxygen therapy demand. Although this had prompted a search for other
equipment (−8.15%). suppliers outside the EU, there was still a considerable gap
Conversely, due to their technological simplicity between intra- and extra-EU trade throughout the period
and ease of purchase, the import of protective garments under analysis.
and disinfectants showed an upward trend during the
pandemic, regardless of the origin of these products 3. Methodology and data
(Figure 3). According to Park et al. (2020), the huge 3.1. Methodology
increase in demand for surgical masks, eye protection,
gloves, and gowns had exhausted stocks, significantly An individual econometric model was specified for
driving up prices and causing a backlog in order fulfillment each medical product to estimate the determinants of
for 4 – 6 months. The primary challenge is to ensure that imports by the EU-27 in the period 2015 – 2020. This
critical protection products are supplied and assigned to entails the estimation of seven import functions, one for
front-line healthcare workers and other stakeholders in each product, which include variables associated with
affected countries, especially those most vulnerable to the the economic and social characteristics of the importing
spread of coronavirus. country, as well as the price index and the origin of these
products. Special reference is also made to the impact of
2 https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/covid19_e/covid_ COVID-19 to detect the possible effects of the pandemic
reports_e.htm (Equation I).

Volume 1 Issue 2 (2023) 4 https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.1207