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Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, at a media session on the announcement of tender results for the development of private hospitals at Wong Chuk Hang and Tai Po at the lobby of West Wing, Central Government Offices, Tamar, today (March 13):
Secretary for Food and Health: The Government has entered into the Agreement and Conditions of Sale (Land Grant) as well as the Service Deed with GHK Hospital Limited in respect of the tender for the development of a private hospital at the piece of land in Wong Chuk Hang today. The shareholders of this company are Singapore's Parkway Pantai Limited and Hong Kong-listed NWS Holdings Limited, whereas the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong would be a collaborating partner of this company. As for the piece of land for private hospital development in Tai Po, we received only one tender. Since that particular tender cannot fulfil all the basic requirements in our tender document, we have to cancel the tender exercise for the Tai Po site.
Reporter: Do you think the land in Tai Po is not attractive because you have only received one tender? Do you think there is still a need to develop new private hospitals in Hong Kong?
Secretary for Food and Health: Regarding your first question, there are many factors that the prospective tenderers will take into consideration. So I think there are many other factors that only the prospective tenderers themselves will know. Regarding your question about the need for expanding the capacity of private health-care services, as I have pointed out earlier, we will consider firstly proposals for service expansion of existing private hospitals. There are at least three hospitals having plans of expanding their own service capacity. In addition to the newly awarded piece of hospital land today, there will be a substantial increase in the number of private hospital beds in a few years' time. After taking into consideration the estimated need for private hospital services, the implementation of the Health Protection Scheme which is a voluntary private health insurance scheme, and the market situation, we will then decide on the use of the remaining three pieces of land for development of private hospitals.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Issued at HKT 19:05
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