These show that in 2020, Cyprus had the seventh lowest ratio of health expenditure in the EU with 5.9% of GDP, below the EU27 average of 8%, still well up on the 3.5% the previous year.

Eurostat said that in 2020, health remained the second-largest function of general government expenditure in the EU, following social protection.

Government expenditure on health increased by 1 percentage point (pp) compared with 2019 (8.0% of GDP in 2020 compared with 7.0% of GDP in 2019).

The increase is due to both a decrease in nominal GDP and an increase in government expenditure on health (€1,073 billion in 2020 compared with €978 billion in 2019), mainly related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

EU-wide, the most significant categories of health expenditure were hospital services (3.4% of GDP), outpatient services (2.5% of GDP) and ‘medical products, appliances and equipment’ (1.2% of GDP).

In 2020, Czechia and Austria (both 9.2%) and France (9.0%) recorded the highest ratios of government expenditure devoted to health to GDP among EU Member States. Meanwhile, Latvia (4.8% of GDP), Poland and Ireland (both 5.4% of GDP) recorded the lowest ratios.

The EU member state recording the largest increase in the ratio of government expenditure devoted to health to GDP was Cyprus (5.9% in 2020 compared with 3.5% in 2019), followed by Malta (7.2% of GDP in 2020 compared with 5.2% of GDP in 2019) and Hungary (6.4% of GDP in 2020 compared with 4.5% of GDP in 2019).

Source: Cyprus Mail