Kuwait’s Health Ministry has received bids for the contract to build the Kuwait Cancer Centre in the Sabah area of Kuwait.

Nine groups submitted bids for the construction deal on 25 January. A joint venture of the local Bayan National Trading Company and Turkey’s Ozge & Limak submitted the low bid of KD151m ($545m). This was about 11 per cent lower than the KD169m price submitted by the joint venture of Kuwaiti Manager Real Estate Projects Management Company and Spain’s Becsa.

The local Alghanim International General Trading & Contracting submitted the third lowest bid of KD173m.

The cancer centre will contain 600 beds and its main function will be for diagnosis to complement an existing hospital for cancer treatment. The project is the third hospital project that the Health Ministry has tendered in recent months.

On 9 January, Kuwait’s Central Tenders Committee approved the award of a KD31m ($111m) contract to Alghanim International to expand the Al-Razi hospital. The expansion project will add an additional 192 beds to the capacity of the existing hospital.

In December, the Health Ministry received bids from 10 contractors for the project to expand the Al-Amiri hospital. The local Combined Group Contracting Company submitted the low bid of KD84.9m.

The proposed extension to the Al-Amiri hospital will consist of a tower with up to 10 storeys, a basement level and a four-storey podium. The development will cover a total area of about 90,000 square metres and will contain 65 speciality clinics, a physiotherapy department, laboratories, a radiology department and a pharmacy. The extension will increase the capacity of the existing hospital by 360 beds.

The projects are part of the Health Ministry’s plans to expand and upgrade nine existing hospitals, as its population is expected to grow from the current level of 3.4 million to 5.4 million over the next two decades.