Hamstrung by red tape, hospital operators buy their way into India

 10-Sep-15, Reuters

For nearly two years, Parkway Pantai has delayed the opening of its 450-bed India hospital, the Singapore-based medical firm's bid to cash in on one of Asia's fastest growing private healthcare markets, as it waited for the necessary permits.

Image: Reuters / Shailesh Andrade

Parkway, a unit of the world's second largest healthcare group by market value IHH Healthcare Bhd, now intends to use acquisitions to quickly expand in India, where the private hospitals market is estimated to be worth $55 billion a year but where companies must obtain as many as 70 clearances from federal and local authorities to launch a new facility.

"Greenfield is off the agenda," Ramesh Krishnan, Parkway's head of Middle East and South Asia operations, told Reuters by telephone from Singapore. "It's a market you don't want to wait eternally to tap into, so we've basically decided to do it inorganically. It's just a question of a shorter runway."

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