China's first foreign-owned hospital seeks medical tourists
Perennial General Hospital Tianjin. — Bloomberg
Tianjin: A Singapore hospital operator wants more international patients to seek treatment at its new medical centre in China, as foreign healthcare providers eye medical tourism as a new growth area in the world's second-largest economy.
Perennial Holdings Pte's US$139mil hospital opened earlier this year in the northern city of Tianjin, and is the first fully foreign-owned medical facility in the mainland.
The hospital aims to derive 30% of its revenue during its first year of operation from patients visiting from Russia, the Middle East and South-East Asia – hoping China will become an emerging destination for medical tourism that can compete with established regional rivals Singapore, Thailand and Japan.
Perennial's focus on luring overseas patients to Tianjin came after China last year moved to allow private hospitals to be fully owned by foreign entities, which had previously needed a Chinese business partner.
China's health regulator has since encouraged the Tianjin facility to differentiate itself from the country's public hospitals, hospital president Daniel Liu said in an interview this week.
'Medical tourism has yet to become an industry in China, but it's showing promise. We hope to make the pie bigger,' he said. 'Some specialities in the Chinese healthcare system have grown in the past two decades, to a point that measures up to international standards.'
Private healthcare providers have faced headwinds operating in China as the country's post-Covid economic slump weighed on their main clientele – expats and well-off domestic customers with commercial insurance coverage.
Some private hospitals and clinics have closed shop in recent months, while others have had to lower their prices, according to local media.
China can be appealing to medical tourists in part due to a speedier diagnosis and treatment process. — Bloomberg
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