Hong Kong-led investment group to spend 1 billion yuan on medical facilities in Guangdong
Consortium led by former finance chief Antony Leung plans to set up two hospitals and 20 clinics with eye on Beijing’s Greater Bay Area plan
An investment group led by former Hong Kong finance minister Antony Leung Kam-chung will pump at least 1 billion yuan (HK$1.13 billion) into a Shenzhen-based medical group as a pioneering move to participate in the Greater Bay Area plan, an integration scheme with cities in the Pearl River Delta.
New Frontier, a Hong Kong and Shanghai-based investment firm, in which Nan Fung Group is a substantial investor, will become the major shareholder in Best Unimed Medical Group. Leung is co-founder and chairman of New Frontier.
In an interview with the Post, Best Unimed chief executive officer Professor Xie Rushi said the huge funding from Hong Kong would fill the health care services gap faced by mainlanders as well as the 160,000 Hongkongers and 30,000 expatriates living in Shenzhen.
In the longer term, Xie said, those residing in other parts of Guangdong province would also benefit.
Xie said they were planning to attract Hong Kong doctors to serve at two new hospitals and about 20 clinics in Guangdong by offering them insurance cover aimed at protecting them from threatening tactics commonly used by mainland patients seeking compensation.
The health care facilities would be managed “Hong Kong style” and doctors would not have to sit extra examinations to practice in Shenzhen, he said.