The Higher Education Ministry has invited contractors to bid by 13 March for the estimated $150m design and build contract for a new hospital at Najran University in the southern Najran Province close to the Yemen border.

Contractors bidding to develop the hospital expect an award in June this year. Completion is scheduled for June 2014.

Late last year Turkey’s Baytur Construction & Contracting Company started building the estimated SR3bn ($800m) teaching hospital at King Khaled University at Abha, which is in the southern Asir Province.

The three-year contract covers the construction of an 800-bed student hospital, and nine buildings of four to five floors to be used as medical, dentistry and pharmacy colleges, and a library (MEED 24:12:09).