The Portuguese group Malo Clinic has been invited to set up a faculty of dental medicine in a university that is being built in the Chinese city of Tianjin.

“It is our first pedagogical [educational] partnership. It opens a new field of business for Malo Clinic. It will also allow us to secure a stock of dentists necessary to keep up with our expansion in China,” the President and founder of the Malo Clinic group, Paulo Malo, told Portuguese news agency Lusa this week.

Chinese businessman Li Jinyuan – president and founder of the pharmaceutical company Tiens Group – is building the university in Tianjin. The investment is worth 10 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion).

Mr Li made headlines around the world three months ago when he paid for 6,400 employees – 5,400 of them from China – to have a four-day holiday in Paris and the Côte d’Azur in France, to celebrate his company’s 20th anniversary.

The first Malo Clinic specialising in dental medicine was launched in Portugal in 1995. The group currently employs around 3.000 people in almost 30 countries.

Mr Malo noted that every year around 3,500 dentists and oral surgeons from around the world visit the group’s clinic in Lisbon for professional education.

The group has four clinics in Mainland China, the first of which opened in Beijing in November 2013.