The Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, a deemed university under the Ministry of Commerce, as part of its research study on ‘India’s Export Potential of Ayush Products with SAARC and ASEAN Countries’, held a seminar of exporters of Ayush products in Chennai, yesterday.

The meeting will be held at the Seminar Hall of IMPCOPS at Thiruvanmiyur in the afternoon. IIFT has been commissioned to carry out the research study by the Department of Ayush.

Dr T Thirunarayanan, secretary of Centre for Traditional Medicines and Research, Chennai, who organizes the seminar on behalf of IIFT, said the research study of IIFK is mainly aimed at looking into the prospect of India’s export potential of Ayush products in SAARC and ASEAN countries in terms of the market size, trade channels, and regulation requirements for boosting the potential of export business.

He said the objective to conduct a meeting in Chennai is to explore the current export potential of Siddha, Ayurveda and Unani drugs from Tamil Nadu to these countries and to discuss government initiatives in promoting export awareness in the industry and understanding regulatory requirements of the targeted countries.

Dr Vijaya Katti, professor & chairperson (Research) of Indian Institute of Foreign Trade has informed CTMR that IIFT has already started with the data collection from different database for the study and is in the process of organizing overseas survey. The team member of the Research Project, Dr Jaydeep Mukherjee, will attend the seminar for data collection here.

The meeting would help IIFT in getting an overview on the market size of Traditional Medicine in SAARC and ASEAN countries, their purchasing capacity and the percentage of people from those countries consuming traditional medicines, CTMR sources said. Besides, it can assess the government initiatives to promote export awareness of Traditional Medicines in India.

According to Thirunarayanan, 15 major manufacturers of ISM from Tamil Nadu and 8 Ayush experts will attend the seminar as resource persons. The experts are selected from the areas of Drug Development, Regulation and Quality Assurance.