Perennial first foreign firm allowed to wholly own tertiary hospital in China

Nod for Singapore group comes as Beijing opens up tightly regulated medical sector

- Tan Dawn Wei

BEIJING - Singapore property and healthcare player Perennial Holdings has become the first foreign company to be granted a licence by the Chinese authorities to wholly own and run a tertiary hospital in China.

This came after Beijing announced in September that it was opening up its tightly regulated and under-resourced medical sector to level up healthcare expertise and services.

The real estate giant, led by former CapitaLand Retail chief executive Pua Seck Guan, has built a one billion yuan (S$185.3 million), 500-bed tertiary multidisciplinary hospital in Xiqing district in the south of Tianjin city, as part of an integrated medical hub that it has developed.

The hospital, called Perennial General Hospital, is designed like the Mount Elizabeth and Gleneagles hospitals in Singapore - which encourages doctors to rely on shared facilities and services such as operating theatres, diagnostics and clinical laboratory testing.

It has its own medical team in disciplines including orthopaedics, ophthalmology, cardiology and oncology. Perennial has hired nearly 600 people for the hospital, which is slated to open soon.

The Chinese government requires that at least half of those hired are locals. It also prohibits foreign-owned hospitals from genetics work, organ transplants and assisted reproductive treatments.

China has, over the last two decades, allowed foreign players to invest in hospitals with Chinese partners. There are more than 60 such establishments across the country, said the National Health Commission.