Dubai-based KEF Holdings, which specialises in off-site construction, is keen to tap demand in the Arabian Gulf for schools and hospitals amid rising investments from the government and private sector.
The company said it would start supplying prefabricated hospitals and schools to the UAE and Saudi Arabia from the second half of this year. These units will be made at its US$50 million off-site manufacturing park in India, which opened in November.
“We are looking to bring costs down and increase efficiency,” said Faizal Kottikollon, the chairman and founder of KEF.
About 35 per cent of its production from the India factory, which will be fully operational by June, will be exported to the Middle East. The rest would be for the Indian market.
KEF is also looking to start a manufacturing facility in the UAE next year.
“The infrastructure facilities in the UAE are better, the economy is growing and we can export to Europe from here easily,” Mr Kottikollon said.
In 2011, New York-listed Tyco International bought a 75 per cent equity stake in KEF’s valve manufacturing business for the oil and gas industry for $300m. A year later, Tyco bought the remaining 25 per cent for $100m.
KEF’s focus is infrastructure for the health and education segments.
As part of those plans it will open the first phase of a 500-bed prefabricated hospital in Kozhikode, Kerala, in the first quarter of next year. The second phase is due to open in 2017.
The hospital will look into tapping the Gulf medical tourism market. “It took 10 per cent of the cost, including infrastructure, design and execution, of a similar hospital in the United States to build the [Kerala] hospital,” Mr Kottikollon said.
Dubai’s private healthcare sector will need $1.5 billion by 2020 to provide the required 1,500 new hospital beds, according to a Colliers International report in November.
The private healthcare sector in the UAE as a whole will require $2.87bn in investments in the next six years and 2,632 more beds.
ssahoo@thenational.ae
