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Plant for pharmaceutical raw materials on cards

Move to increase medicine export

Star Business Report
The government plans to set up an API (active pharmaceutical ingredients) unit to produce raw materials of medicines cashing in on developing countries' exemption from WTO restrictions regarding patent rights.
Industry people say Bangladesh sees a window of opportunity to diversify export by adding pharmaceutical raw materials to the list and also boost medicine export that will reduce the dependance of ready made garments (RMG) in overall export earning.
Bangladesh and other developing nations will enjoy the exemption until 2016 while the other medicine exporting countries will be bound to have the patent rights from next year as per the rules of World Trade Organisation (WTO).
"As RMG market may shrink after the expiry of multi-fibre arrangement next year, we can retain our overall export earning through medicine export," said Khondker Tarique-ul-Islam, vice-
president of Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (Bapi).
Leading entrepreneurs in pharmaceuticals sector hope to earn huge amount of foreign currency through export of raw materials once the API is set up.
Currently Bangladesh imports 80 percent of total domestic requirement of medicine raw materials spending Tk 850 crore a year, according to Habibur Rahman, director (drug administration) of the Ministry of Health.
He said 70 percent of the imports comes from India while the rest from China, England, Switzerland, Germany and Malaysia.
Pharmaceutical exporters have long been demanding setting up of such a raw material production unit and seeking a place for establishing an international standard testing laboratory for pharmaceutical products.
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia on Sunday asked the Ministry of Commerce to find out a place for establishing the API unit and the testing laboratory, a com-
merce ministry high official told The Daily Star.
A meeting will be held shortly at the Ministry of Industries to discuss the issue of API and testing lab. Representatives from the ministries concerned, Bapi leaders, experts and academics are expected to be present at the meeting.
"We will propose for allocating a 15-acre land near Chittagong Port for the plant," Bapi President M Shafiuzzaman told The Daily Star.
Sources said the government is also planning to set up a business promotion council to promote pharmaceutical export.
Shafiuzzaman, also managing director of Hudson Pharmaceuticals Ltd, said Bangladesh can substantially increase pharmaceutical export after this year when WTO rules on pharmaceuticals patent rights come into effect.
Making products competitive in the international market by cutting production cost of medicines is the key chal-
lenge for the industry, he said. "If we can produce raw materials locally, production cost will decline."
The Bapi leaders expects pharmaceutical exports volume to cross Tk 10,000 crore a year after 2010 once the API and the promotion council are formed.
"In the changed scenario, prices of medicine ingredients will increase significantly^So raw material producing countries will certainly reap the benefits while the others will lose the market," the Bapi vice-president said.
At present, Bangladesh exports medicines to over 50 countries including Korea, Brazil, the Netherlands, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Yemen, USA, India, South Africa, Ukraine, Vietnam, Kenya, Norway, Sweden, Indonesia and Hong Kong.
According to Export Promotion Bureau statistics, export earning from pharmaceuticals sector was Tk 74.83 crore in 2003-04 fiscal year, which is 30 percent higher than previous year's income amounted to Tk 52.37 crore.