Seventeen Indian pharmaceutical enterprises on Oct. 14 met with HCM City partners during a trade-exchange programme to seek more opportunities in the field.

The companies produce a wide range of pharmaceutical goods, including health food and veterinary medicine.

Pharmaceuticals are one of the major products that India exports to Vietnam .

Two-way trade between the two countries was more than 2 billion USD in 2009, with an annual growth of 20 percent.

From 2008-10, the Vietnamese pharmaceutical industry increased turnover by 12 percent annually.

Last year, the industry sold around 700 million USD of drugs on the local market. The rest, which amounted to 50 percent of sales, was imported medicine.

Vietnam also exported 40 million USD worth of drugs last year, an increase of 20 percent compared to 2008.

However, the local pharmaceutical industry is expected to continue to produce only basic medicines, and will not manufacture specialised drugs for heart or cancer diseases.

Most of the raw materials are imported from China (25 percent) and India (21 percent).

Last year, Vietnam spent 1.17 billion USD on imported medicines.

Demand for medicine per capita increased from 6 USD in 2001 to 16.5 USD in 2008, and is expected to reach to 25 USD in 2015./.