UAE-based Growmore Group has accelerated plans to develop healthcare cities in the Arabian Gulf region and North Africa and hopes to have one operational in Saudi Arabia as early as 2022, according to chairman and founder Nitin Shelke.
The global investment and financial services conglomerate had previously announced plans to develop as many as 15 healthcare cities across Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Each healthcare city will span as much as 50 acres and include hospitals, hotels, educational institutions and research facilities.
In an interview with Arabian Business, Shelke said that the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic had led the company to accelerate plans for the healthcare cities, starting with sites in Saudi Arabia and Morocco.
“We have the support of the NHS [National Health Service] in the UK and the governments of the respective countries,” he said. “These are huge projects.”
“We have accelerated our plans. The first phase of the healthcare cities are supposed to be operational in approximately 2024,” Shelke added. “But we plan to get it operational by 2022.”
To fund the projects, Growmore has developed and created one of the world’s first healthcare digital currencies, a cryptocurrency token already listed on a number of exchanges.
Earlier on Thursday, Growmore announced that it had bought Medicinos Bank, Lithuania’s leading retail bank with assets of $395 million.
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