Senior officials of the Union Commerce Ministry and the European Commission (EC) are meeting in Brussels on July 30 to thrash out the long pending issue of countervailing duties (CVD) imposed by EC about three years ago on some antibiotics. The ministry has asked Pharmexcil to provide information pertaining to the financial impact on the product due to anti-dumping duty and countervailing duty on these Indian antibiotics.

The EC had imposed countervailing duties on some antibiotics, namely, amoxicillin trihydrate, ampicillin trihydrate and cefalexin against Indian exporters. This has significantly affected export of these drugs during the last three years. Consequently, the government of India had revised standard input output norms (SIONS) for these products and had taken up the matter with European Commission for interim review of CVD measures.

Pharmexcil executive director Dr PV Appaji said that the exports of the antibiotics have declined over last three years. The issue has been causing trouble for manufacturers and exporters of antibiotic medicines in the country. Some of the exporters are even ready to accompany the delegation to put forth their concern before the EC officials.

The Pharmexcil has already provided information to the ministry on the aspect and has urged its members to provide more inputs that would be helpful for the Commerce ministry delegation to effectively take up the case with European authorities, Dr Appaji said.

"Countervailing duty on antibiotics certainly affected the industry as it has no other choice but to sell the products at lower price", said M Narayan Reddy, president of the Bulk Drug Manufacturers Association (BDMA). According to the data available with BDMA, there are around 23 manufacturers of amoxicillin trihydrate and same number of manufacturers of ampicilin trihydrate. There are around 8-10 companies that manufacture cefalexin.