Singapore, keen to boost its medical science sector, will open its second medical school in 2007 in an alliance with Duke University of the United States, Singapore media reported on Monday.

The graduate school will operate from the nation’s biggest hospital, Singapore General, and comes as the wealthy Southeast Asian island is pouring millions of dollars into expanding its education industry and courting students in the Asia-Pacific.

Singapore’s government, which has built up its economy by picking sectors to invest in, has implemented liberal rules on stem cell research as it seeks to become a centre for life science research.

It aims to boast 15 world-class biotechnology companies by 2010 after opening a $300 million new research centre in 2003.

The alliance with North Carolina-based Duke would boost Singapore’s medical services, including a budding biomedical sciences industry, the Straits Times newspaper quoted Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan as telling local reporters.

“It will be a big boost to Singapore’s medical services, including our biomedical initiative, which is a major drive by Singapore to develop the life sciences industry,” Tan said.

Education and medical sciences are two industries that Singapore hopes will keep the island’s economy growing as low-cost factories in China and India threaten the electronics factories at the heart of its exports.

The government expects education services to make up about five percent of economic activity in the next decade, up from a current 3.6 percent of gross domestic product.

It also forecasts a tripling in the number of foreign students to 150,000 by 2012, as a growing middle class in Asia look for university education outside the United States and Europe.

Foreign schools and universities with campuses in Singapore include the University of Chicago, France’s INSEAD, Johns Hopkins, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University.

Singapore’s current medical school is based at the public National University of Singapore.