April 20, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] SK hynix is reportedly injecting US$300 million into building a general hospital in China by 2022, raising speculation that SK Group could make a big push for its nascent bio and health care business in the burgeoning market.

According to Korea Economic Daily on Sept. 10, the decision was made after the firm’s CEO and Vice Chairman Park Seong-wook and Li Xiaomin, the Communist Party Secretary of Wuxi, a city near Shanghai in eastern China, recently held a meeting. They also agreed to operate some 800 sickbeds first and then double the number in phases. 

The US$300 million funding is the largest investment made by the chipmaker in a non-semiconductor project. The firm’s Wuxi unit will be responsible for the fund raising.

Its sister firm SK Telecom, Korea’s largest telecom carrier, plans to build an ICT-based health care center in the Chinese city. Considering possible synergies with the planned hospital, the report said Wuxi could become a global base for SK Group’s bio and health care business.

SK hynix cautioned against reading too much into the planned hospital, saying it is part of its ongoing contribution activities in the Chinese city where the firm has operated a DRAM memory chip plant since 2005. Over the past 13 years, its total investment into the facility has exceeded US$11 billion.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)