Vietnamese and Indian experts discuss opportunities for Vietnamese and Indian enterprises in the pharmaceutical industry. (Photo: VNA) In an effort to promote trade and investment in the pharmaceuticalsector, the Embassy of India, the International Investment Promotion Alliance,the Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises and the Vietnam Chamber ofCommerce and Industry (VCCI) organised a seminar in Hanoi on January 21 toconnect experts and enterprises from the two countries.
According to the embassy, India was popularly known as the pharmacy ofthe world, earning its credibility as one of the largest manufacturers ofgeneric drugs. It also said the Indian pharmaceutical sector supplies over 50 percentof global demand for various vaccines, 40 percent of generic demand in the USand 25 percent of all medicine in the UK. Indian drugs are exported to morethan 200 countries in the world, with the US being the key market.
Indian pharmaceutical exports, including bulk drugs, intermediates, drugformulations, biologicals, Ayush & herbal products and surgical equipment,reached 16.28 billion USD in 2020.
Ambassador Pranay Verma told the seminar: “Vietnam is a key consumer ofIndian pharmaceuticals with an annual trade worth 225 million USD. Vietnam iscurrently the 19th among the top 25 destinations for Indian pharmaceuticalproducts.”
Indronil Sengupta, President of the India Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi,said: “India has a large pool of scientists and engineers with potential tosteer the industry ahead to greater heights,” measuring the market size of Vietnam, with nearly 100 million of people, had an estimated total value of 7billion USD in 2019 and would be growing at 8 percent till 2024.
At the same time, local drug manufacturers were able to meet half of thetotal medicine market demand, approximately 60 percent of pharmaceuticalend products, 90 percent of active pharmaceutical ingredients while most of theraw materials for the production were currently imported from India, China andother places.
According to Indian experts, new regulations from various FTAs in Vietnam broughtopportunities and challenges to Indian pharmaceutical companies which couldenjoy lower taxes in the industry compared with companies in Europeancountries.
Nguyen Tuan Anh, factory director of Sao Kim Pharmaceutical JointStock Company, which produces and exports anti-malarial drugmaterials to Africa and some Southeast Asian countries, said his companyexpected to partner more with the Indian firms for more projects in Vietnam to serve thepotential pharmaceutical market with a growth rate of more than 15 percent eachyear.
Anh told Vietnam News: “With the advantages in pharmaceutical materials and natural activeingredients that can meet domestic and export demand, we aim to develop hightechnology factories for pharmaceutical products to better compete in themarket.”
Anh said more FTAs, especially ones with India, brought both chancesand challenges to local companies like his as multinational pharmaceuticalcorporations could invest in and acquire the private enterprises,increasing competition.
As most of the local pharmaceutical companies mainly produce inexpensiveand common drugs, while drugs of high value still have to be imported, Anh saidhe was looking for Indian partners who can incorporate, transfer technology orparticipate in part of the pharmaceutical active ingredient semi-syntheticchain in Vietnam.
Anh also expected to own the technology from good co-operation withIndian partners so that his company could soon proactively own the source rawmaterials in pharmaceutical production, helping Vietnam avoid themanipulation of raw materials from foreign producers to local production.
Also at the seminar, Pham Thi Thu, owner of the drug chain GreenPharma 24 in Thanh Hoa, Hanoi and HCM City, said 50 percent of turnover wasfrom Indian products which were at much lower prices compared to otherimported drugs.
Thu told Vietnam News: “Vietnamese consumers love foreign brands and it is easier toadvise them to buy Indian products with a price of as much as local productsinstead of paying for a price of two or three times higher for Europeanimported drugs.”
Economist Nguyen Mai quoted the BMI Research in 2018 saying that Vietnam's pharmaceuticalmarket size reached 5.9 billion USD, up 11.5 percent over the previous year,becoming the second largest pharmaceutical market in Southeast Asia, staying inthe group of 17 countries with the highest pharmaceutical industry growth ratein the world.
The current 180 local pharmaceutical manufacturing enterprises and 224factories meeting GMP (good manufacturing practice) standards, met only 52.5 percentof the demand while the rest must be imported.
According to the market report, the import turnover of pharmaceuticalproducts reached 2.7 billion USD, up 6.7 percent, and the import ofpharmaceutical materials reached 338 million USD, up 4.1 percent over the sameperiod last year.
As the report forecast local pharmaceutical industry to increase 11 percentper year as one of the most stable in the world, reaching 7.7 billion USD in2021 and 16.1 billion USD in 2026, Mai said there was great potentialfor both sides.
He said: “Vietnamese and Indian pharmaceutical enterprises can establishlong-term relationships, proceeding to sign and implement import-exportcontracts, make a "win-win" investment, contributing positively tothe expansion of economic, scientific and technological cooperation relationsbetween the two countries."/.
VNA
