Raffles Med expands in Singapore, eyes Shanghai profit

SINGAPORE (REUTERS) - Raffles Medical Group Ltd, Singapore's largest listed healthcare provider, may see a 50 per cent rise in revenues from the expansion of its flagship hospital and a new medical centre in the city state by 2014, its chairman told Reuters on Tuesday.

Executive Chairman Loo Choon Yong also said he expects the company's loss-making medical centre in Shanghai, which opened in 2010, to turn profitable next year as costs stabilise and more patients come.

'The operating costs are quite high in China. When you send doctors, nurses, managers to another country, there's accommodation and so on that you have to pay besides the salary.'

'You also need to pay a bit more salary to encourage people to go there,' Mr Loo said in an interview.