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With an aim to boost exports, the Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil) is planning a host of business delegations to countries across the globe in the remaining few months of this fiscal.
As such, industry insiders feel that pharma exports from the country would be less than $20 billion during the current fiscal, and fall short of the target set earlier to touch $25 billion in exports by 2014-15. Last fiscal had actually seen one of the slowest growth in pharma exports from India in around a decade's time, at $14.84 billion, up 1.2 per cent. The primary reason being the crackdown by the US drug regulator on major Indian exporters.
A senior official at Pharmexcil informed that business delegations are planned every year in which we take small and medium sized players to different countries to help them network with the local agents as well as understand the requirements of that specific country. "Historically, we have seen that such visits help the companies to crack new markets, and lead to growth in exports in the medium to long term."
As for the upcoming delegations, Pharmexcil is planning one in December to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It has made a list of countries including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine among others, and the delegation is likely to visit three to four countries in that area.
This would followed by another delegation around January-February to the African countries, like Angola, Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia etc. Around three to four countries would be selected from the list for the delegation to visit.
Then again in March, another delegation would visit countries like Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovania. While these delegations are likely to bolster chances of increasing exports with these countries, industry associations feel that pharma exports are unlikely to see jumps in growths. "Exports have been growing at a slow but steady pace, and jumps in growth are unlikely," said a senior official of the Indian Drug Manufacturers' Association. As for reasons he cites, that as one-fourth of India's drug exports are to the US, issues with its regulatory body is going to have a serious impact at least in the medium term. "Plus, some countries in the CIS, as for example, Russia are showing reluctance in giving long term approvals as they want to boost their indigenous industry. Pharmexcil is actually doing a good job in taking Indian pharma companies abroad on these delagations," he said.
