The 2012 Arab Health Exhibition & Congress (Dubai; UAE), the largest event of its kind in the Middle East, will be held once again at the Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Center during January 23-26, 2012.

The 2012 edition continues to provide a unique platform for leading manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors to meet the medical and scientific community from the Middle East and beyond. This year the event will host 3,000 exhibitors from 60 countries welcoming 71,940 health care professionals, creating a host of networking events among members of the business, medical, and scientific community from across the world. A total of 36 country pavilions will be on show, including new country pavilions from Japan, Hong Kong, Argentina, Hungary, Bulgaria, Chile, Portugal, and Singapore.

Concomitantly held, the 2012 Arab Health Congress will feature 17 conferences, addressed by 500 internationally acclaimed speakers, making it one of the largest and most comprehensive conference programs worldwide. The 2012 congress will again be sponsored by the Cleveland Clinic Center for Continuing Education (Beachwood, OH, USA). This year’s conferences will focus on biomedical engineering, medical education, psychiatry, histopathology, and wound care.

Another event being held is the Leaders in Healthcare event, with this year’s theme being Patient Experience (PE), addressing the importance and impact of PE at a national level in a 10-year perspective. The conference will then discuss PE’s commercial viability by monetizing its emotional value and measuring its success. Included in this year’s highlights are the Arab Health Achievement Awards, held to celebrate the region’s future generation of clinicians. Two new award categories will be included; the “Young Surgeon of the Year Award” and the Cleveland Clinic “Young Clinician of the Year Award.”

“By acknowledging the current trends in the market and identifying the niche opportunities available for our exhibitors, Arab Health continues to be the preferred platform for our customers to market their products, garner intelligence, debate industry issues, and network with each other,” said Simon Page, managing director of life sciences at Informa Exhibitions (Zug, Switzerland), who organized the event.

World Health Organization (WHO, Geneva, Switzerland) data states that the country members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) spend around USD 18 billion on health care annually, most of which is government funded. Health care systems in the GCC region currently face increasing health care demand and expenditures, triggered mainly by a growing and aging population. Recent growth trends indicate that the pharmaceutical sector of the GCC will touch USD 7.6 billion by 2014 and grow to 9.6 billion by 2019, reflecting the increasing foreign direct investment into the sector.

Guangzhou Jia Yu medical equipment Limited