Investors rush to put money on high grade hospitals

Mar 6th at 19:32

06-03-2013 19:32:00+07:00

The list of the investors, foreign and domestic, who decide to inject money in the healthcare sector, has been prolonged.

The success of the Vietnam-France Hospital has prompted more and more investors to pour money into high grade hospitals which aim to serve high income earners in Vietnam.

Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon has reported that two foreign and one domestic investors would join forces to build a big hospital in Bien Hoa City of Dong Nai province.

The Dong Nai provincial Planning and Investment Department has confirmed that it has granted an investment business certificate to the project on a hospital on the Highway No. 51.

The hospital, called Shin Mark, which has the total investment capital of $80 million would be developed by Radiant City Limited from Samoa island, which contributes 70 percent of capital, Shink Mark from Taiwan which contributes 20 percent, and a Vietnamese company – Tin Nghia, which contributes 10 percent of capital.

In Hanoi, the construction of Anh Sinh Hospital in Tu Liem district was kicked off in May 2011. This would be a high grade hospital – hotel, comprising of 500 beds. It is expected to have the total investment capital of VND2 trillion, including the VND1 trillion for the first phase of the project.

Especially, the An Sinh Hospital in Hanoi is believed to walk abreast with the international hospitals in Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.

A report showed that Vietnamese spend billions of dollars a year to go abroad to have healthcare services. Experts believe that these would be the potential targeted clients of An Sinh Hospital, once it becomes operational.

In 2012, Vinmec, a hospital in Hanoi, developed by Vingroup, became operational after a short time of construction of one year. This is a high grade hotel-hospital with modern facilities, high grade equipments and high end services and 500 beds.

With the powerful financial capability, Vingroup has invited the leading experts in their fields in Vietnam and overseas to work for Vinmec.

Singaporean Parkway healthcare group is nearly completing its steps to put the Thanh Do International Hospital in Binh Tan district in HCM City, capitalized at $80 million, into operation in early 2013.

The manager of the hospital is Parkway, one of the leading Asian healthcare groups with a large network of 16 hospitals and 3,400 beds throughout Asia.

A well-known name from Germany, TSB Technology Systems Business AG, is also eyeing the Hanoi and HCM City markets, the two biggest cities where dwellers have medium and high incomes, planning to build an international hospital there.

However, though investors have been pouring their money into the healthcare sector, believing this is a lucrative business field, not all of them have succeeded.

Tran Quoc Khoa, a senior official of the Ministry of Health, said on Dau tu that investors meet a lot of difficulties when investing in the sector. In general, the investment rate in the sector is very high, while it will always take long time to take back the investment capital. This means that the investors have to have long term huge capital, while the hospitals need to be managed by experienced experts.

According to Khoa, Vietnam welcomes the investments in the healthcare sector. However, after tens of years of attracting investments into the sector, Vietnam now only has six 100 percent foreign invested hospitals with the total registered capital of $94 million, 14,354 small scaled foreign invested clinics and 130 non-state domestic owned hospitals.

The representative of a medical equipment supply company also said that a lot of hospitals have been opened, because the Vietnamese market is too attractive. According to the Ministry of Health, about 40,000 Vietnamese go abroad to enjoy healthcare services, where they spend abut 2 billion dollars.