Japan’s Sakurajyuji readies clinic

Japanese healthcare service provider Sakurajyuji Group is set to open a clinic in Bangkok in December as part of an overseas expansion, with a view to offering nursing care services for the ageing Thai population in the future.

The hospital operator says it established Rojana Sakurajyuji Medical, a local joint venture with industrial park operator Rojana, to run Sakura Cross Clinic at Emporium Tower in the heart of the Thai capital.

The clinic, scheduled to open on Dec 17, offers specialism in internal medicine, paediatrics, gynaecology, dermatology and health checkups, among other fields, with staff speaking English, Japanese and Thai. It targets wealthy locals and foreigners, including Japanese residents in the country.

The healthcare service provider intends to operate nursing facilities and housing for the elderly in the country after raising its brand awareness and establishing a reputation for quality management through the clinical services, said a Sakurajyuji spokesman.

A nursing care insurance scheme has yet to be well established in Thailand, he said.

The joint venture with capital of 54 million baht is 49%-owned by the Japanese group, headquartered in the southwestern prefecture of Kumamoto, with the Thai group holding 51%.

Sakurajyuji has seen sharp growth in sales, posting ¥23.1 billion (6.6 billion baht) in the year to March 2018, up more than fivefold over the past decade, according to its website.

The group jointly runs a hospital in Singapore with Parkway Group, the largest healthcare provider in the city-state, and plans to develop nursing homes in Shanghai, China and Taiwan, all with local partners.

Thailand, Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy after Indonesia, has seen rapid growth in the number of people aged 60 and over, which totalled 10.73 million in 2015, up 23.3% from 2010.

The number of those aged between 15 and 59 dropped for the first time during the same period, according to the UN’s “World Population Prospects 2017” report.