The Central Government will propose the constitution of an Indo-EU bilateral working group to address the problems faced by the exporters of traditional medicines to the European Union. The matter is to be taken up jointly by the Department of Commerce and the Department of AYUSH with the India - EU sub-commission on trade in its next meeting, it is learnt.

The government move is to avoid any possible decline in ISM medicine exports due to the recent directives issued by EU for traditional and herbal medicinal products.

According to official figures, the export of Ayurvedic, Sidha and Unani (ASU) drugs to European Union started only 10-12 years ago. The implementation of the proposed directive is expected to have an adverse impact on the marketing of ASU products in EU. It should be noted that the export of Ayurvedic & Unani medicines (Harmonising System (HS) Code 30039001) to EU-15 was US$ 5.38 mn in 2002-03. It was US $ 5.99 mn to EU-25 during the same period.

Meanwhile, the department of AYUSH has already started several measures to ensure improved quality among ISM medicines. In a recent move, the department has called for a meeting of all state authorities in charge of ISM regulation for uniform implementation of good manufacturing practices norms for ayurvedic manufacturing units. While many of the southern states are known to be compelling the manufacturing units to comply with the Schedule T requirements, the compliance is very poor in northern states, it is learnt.

The move is also to ensure that the ayurvedic units across the country comply with the GMP norms prescribed under Schedule T and thereby produce better quality medicines for competing in the global market.

It may be noted that the deadline on Schedule T compliance had expired on 31st December 2004. Except for Karnataka, which recently closed down about 110 non Schedule T complainant facilities, not many state DCAs have initiated crackdown on units that have not implemented Schedule T complainant ISM facilities even after eight months since the deadline.