Samoa's Ministry of Finance has completed the first stage of the process of the government purchase of the private Medcen hospital.
The hospital was established 13 years ago but has been unable to raise enough funds.
It was funded by a loan of more than 2 million US dollar from the Development Bank of Samoa.
The first lump sum payment of 250 thousand US dollars has been approved in the supplementary budget which was passed in the recent session of parliament.
The total cost of the sale is not known at this stage because the ministry of finance says the matter is still handled by a government taskforce.
