JAZAN — B.R. Shetty, chief executive officer and managing director of New Medical Center Group of Companies and UAE Exchange, said work on the SR1 billion Neopharma drug manufacturing plant in Jazan will start in March. “The plot of land for the project has already been allotted and the licensing procedures are progressing well,” he told Saudi Gazette. Shetty, who arrived here to attend the Jazan Economic Forum, said he was fully convinced of making Saudi Arabia his next major destination for investments. “After listening to the speech of Jazan Emir Prince Mohammed bin Nasser at the forum, I was totally convinced that I have come to the right place. When I landed in Abu Dhabi, and started making investments, I had the same feeling. I have ambitious plans to tap the potential of this great nation by making investments first in Jazan, then in Jeddah and Riyadh,” he said, adding that in the next Jazan economic forum, perhaps I would be enticing other investors to Jazan. Shetty, whom Forbes Magazine listed in March last year as the fourth richest expatriate billionaire in the UAE, said he was overwhelmed with the reception and hospitality accorded to him by the emir and several other senior Saudi. He said the Neopharma plant in Jazan would concentrate mainly on manufacturing medicine for cancer, dengue fever and some chronic diseases. “Our thrust will be on making available halal medicine in the Saudi local market,” the businessman said. Shetty also unveiled plans to build a 250-bed hospital in Jazan by spending around SR1 billion. This hospital, featuring world-class quality at affordable rate, would be expanded to a 500-bed capacity in due course. Apart from plans to establish health tourism project and resort in Farasan Island, Shetty is also exploring the prospect of establishing a university in Jazan. The tycoon claimed his whole business concept is service oriented and keeping people's welfare always in mind. “This encouraged me to render support to the ordinary people in the vital education, health and money transfer sectors. We are not looking at purse but at pulse.” He unveiled plans to open 150 branches of the UAE Exchange in the Kingdom in the near future. At present, the exchange has over six million customers in 30 countries. “We are awaiting the government's permission to open the exchange soon. Our service charge for money remittance will be the cheapest,” he said adding that the customers can benefit from the group's Wage Protection System (WPS), successfully implemented in UAE. Nearly, 2,500 companies in the region route the monthly salary disbursals of 1.8 million workers through the exchange under the government's program to ensure that workers, especially in construction, get paid on time. “We will give two master cards – one to the worker and another to his wife or dependent as a complimentary one. The salary will be received in the account of the worker on time even if it is delayed by the employer,” he said. — SG
