Health: Spain's 4th Least Inflationary Group

Prices of medicines and other health care products have fallen significantly over the last four years in Spain, reports the Spanish daily newspaper Cinco Dias.

The reduction in prices of pharmaceutical products proposed by the Spanish government and supported by the pharmaceutical industry in Spain, and the growing competition between health care insurers - formerly the protagonists behind the inflationary effect in the health sector - now means that it is one of the four least inflationary sectors in Spain within the country's consumer price index.

The prices of medicines and therapeutic products, medical services provided in and outside hospitals and medical insurance have changed substantially in recent years. In December 1991, the health and medicines group had an inflation rate of 10.4%; by the end of 1994, this had fallen to 3.7%, reports Cinco Dias.