A giant medical technology cluster could be built in Mineralnye Vody, a city in Southern Russia, with participation from Russian and foreign private investors. The project may require an investment of 162 billion rubles (about $2.5 billion at the current exchange rate).
The Russian government would contribute a quarter of this amount, or 40 billion rubles ($637 million).
Last month Odes Baysultanov — a high-ranking official at the Ministry of North-Caucasian Affairs and also the chairman of Northern Caucasus Development Corporation — met Dominique Fache, chairman of French technopark Sophia Antipolis, and Jack Barbanel, a US private equity investor operating in Russia, to discuss the potential involvement of foreign investors.
Fache and Barnabel said that the project might be interesting to investors from Europe and Asia, the Russian authorities report.
Baysultanov underlined the importance of the project “not only for North Caucasus, but for Russia as a whole,” and the fact that it enjoys supports from the Russian ministries of health and education.
According to the agreed design, the medical technology cluster will occupy a territory of 249 ha. As part of the first stage, a medical university, research center, three medical clinics and a university clinic, as well as a tech park with the corresponding infrastructure will be built.
The second stage will be dedicated to the construction of rehabilitation facilities.
