Abu Dhabi state fund to invest 10 bln yen in hospital in Kobe, Japan

TOKYO (Thomson Financial) - Mubadala Development Co., an investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, will invest about 10 billion yen ($92.6 million) in a hospital that will open in the Japanese city of Kobe to offer advanced medical care, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Friday without citing sources.

With assets totaling about $17 billion, the fund is known for investing in strategic industries such as energy and telecommunications, the report said.

The fund will provide most of the construction costs for a private medical centre to be built in 2010 on Port Island, a man-made island in Kobe.

The hospital will specialize in organ transplants and regenerative medicine.

For its part, Abu Dhabi hopes to acquire some of Japan's medical technologies through the investment and it plans to send doctors to the Kobe hospital to acquire organ transplant technologies as well as techniques for treating diseases common in the Middle East, such as diabetes.