KARACHI: Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) has expressed the resolve to accomplish exports target of around $1 billion by 2016.
If the federal government provide local pharmaceutical industry a level playing field to fulfill their requirements for drug manufacturing said Chairman PPMA Jawed Akhai, vice President Elect Ahsan Awan and others. Local pharmaceutical manufacturers are facing the challenges due to sales tax on pharmaceutical industry, faulty and almost non-existent pricing mechanism of medicines and ineffective Drug Regulatory Authority Pakistan (DRAP), which has pushed the local pharmaceutical industry to the wall.
They claimed manufacturing of several essential drugs had been stopped due to rupee devaluation, inflation and escalated expenses, which rendered the production of these products non-viable at the existed prices fixed by the DRAP.
Akhai said this industry has huge potential to contribute in boosting country’s economy and was providing the highest white-collar jobs to the people of Pakistan. The pharmaceutical industry will be able to meet the export target of $1 billion by 2016 from the current export of $200 million. Moreover, in Vision 2020 these targets are set at $2 billion, they urged.
Among manufacturing based exports in Pakistan, pharmaceutical export – mainly by national pharma is the seventh largest category. Nevertheless due to the negative approach of the DRAP, the exports of pharmaceutical showed a minus growth of approximately 17 percent during 2012-2013 as against 35 percent growth during the preceding year. – Dailytimes
