Mumbai: A top company official has stated that Apollo Hospital will invest about Rs 700 crore by next year (2007) for upgrading its hospitals and acquirements pan-India.

On the sidelines of a Health Summit 2007, Apollo’s Chairman, Prathap C Reddy, said, “We will be investing around Rs 500-700 crore in the next year. The Navi Mumbai hospital will be covered under this. We will spend around Rs 250 to Rs 270 crore for it.”

Mr. Reddy said that the healthcare major is all set to enter Tier-II cities for further expansions, so that the smaller cities should also take the advantage of quality healthcare services.

While talking on acquisition plans, he said that today’s infirmaries were different from what they used to be, and it was better to discover new sites and set up new hospitals there rather than acquiring older ones.

“It takes almost the same time to upgrade the old hospitals, so it is better to build new ones,” Reddy said.

Apollo has also planned to enter abroad markets by the coming year.

“We are looking for operative management in overseas markets like Nigeria, Mauritius and others,” he said, adding that the group was also looking to foray into the UK and US market for operative management.

“We want to prove that we can operate hospitals better than any other players globally, in a cost-effective way,” he added.

At present, Apollo has about 8,000 beds pan-India, and by 2008 it was planning to have around 10,000 beds, he said.