A SINO-GERMAN Friendship Hospital will be established in Shanghai to offer high-end medicare in time for the 2010 World Expo.

According to an agreement signed yesterday by Tongji University and the two German investors, Siemens AG, and Asklepios Kliniken, a major private hospital operator in Germany, the hospital will see a total investment of more than one billion yuan (US$130.6 million).

President Hu Jintao and visiting German President Horst Kohler attended the signing ceremony.

Located in Shanghai's International Medical Zone in Nanhui District, the joint-venture hospital will open with 250 beds in service upon completion of its first phase construction in 2009.

The growing number of well-off people in Shanghai has brought much need for high-end medical services, a need reflected by the World Expo 2010 for which millions of foreign visitors will swarm in, Richard Hausmann, president and CEO of Siemens' China branch told reporters.

Considering this potential market in Shanghai and its surrounding areas, the hospital will serve as a major medical institution for foreign people in China and international visitors to the World Expo, the city's largest international event in 2010.