The move leaves Balfour Beatty and Laing O’Rourke battling it out to design, build, finance and maintain a 350-bed hospital under the Scottish Government’s non-profit distributing model.

Skanska told the Enquirer: “As a multinational organisation operating in markets across Europe and in North and South America, we continually review the opportunities and risks in each of these markets and allocate resources accordingly.

“In the UK a number of significant PPP projects, where we had an involvement, have not proceeded.

“This has caused us to re-prioritise the use of available resources here in the UK.

“We have thus decided to withdraw from the Dumfries and Galloway Acute Services Redevelopment project to concentrate on opportunities elsewhere in the UK.”

NHS Dumfries and Galloway said it was on track to appoint a preferred bidder in the late summer of 2014.

It hopes to start work in 2015 at a site near the town’s bypass at Garroch Farm.

The whole process is still dependent on a final decision on the business case, due at the end of the year.