The Cabinet passed a set of revised ordinances on the detailed conditions and procedures on Tuesday to allow foreign medical institutions in free economic zones.

A 600-bed hospital in the Incheon FEZ in Songdo will be the first.

Although there is a special law that permits opening foreign medical facilities in FEZs, a lack of rules on procedural details had made it difficult to actually set them up.

Under the new enforcement ordinances, the foreign medical institutions to be set up must operate in cooperation with medical facilities set up and run under foreign countries’ rules, and have certain percentages of dentists and doctors with foreign licenses. The ordinances also stipulate that Korea’s Health Ministry determine the requirements for government approval.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to prepare the relevant ministerial decrees within the month and enforce them in June.

“Foreign hospitals will make FEZs more attractive for foreign investors’ settlements, raise their global competitiveness as special economic zones and greatly help spur medical tourism to Korea,” an official at the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said.

The Seoul government has sought to open foreign medical institutions linked with world-famous hospitals in the FEZs since 2002 to improve the residential environment for foreigners and boost foreign investment.

None has been set up over the past 10 years, mainly because insufficient regulations on the conditions and procedures kept foreign investors and overseas hospitals reluctant, the Knowledge Ministry said.

The ministry expects the envisioned hospitals in the FEZs to take in about 60,000 patients from in and out of the country annually.

Regarding concerns over the foreign hospitals’ impact on the local medical system, Knowledge Economy Minister Hong Suk-woo said the government would consider limiting the total number of beds in foreign medical facilities to a certain percentage of hospital beds nationwide.

By Kim So-hyun (sophie@heraldcorp.com)