The union ministry of commerce has called a meeting of herbal exporters to European Union on September 4, 2013 in Ahmedabad to discuss the issue of Written Confirmation (WC) for the export of Psylium Husk/Senna.

As the deadline set by EU to have WC by all the API exporters from India ended on July 2, 2013, this has severely impacted the herbal exporters from India. Particularly, the Psylium Husk/Senna and other herbal extract exporters have been affected as not a single consignment has been exported to EU for want of WC certificate for Herbal APIs from the Indian authorities.

In view of this the commerce ministry has decided to organise a meeting will all stakeholders of the herbal exporters from India. The meeting will be chaired by Sudhanshu Pandey, joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce & Industry at Water World Resort, Amipura Ahmedabad.

Taking up this cause, the pharmaceuticals export promotion council of India (Pharmexcil) has also been sensitising and persuading the commerce ministry since long on this matter. “In our meetings in Hyderabad and New Delhi we have been highlighting this matter with the commerce ministry and finally the government has agreed to move a paper with EU Government on assessing the situation of the farms cultivating herbal products and also the units manufacturing these products and the available infrastructure,” informed Raghuveer Kini, Pharmexcil executive director.

The main agenda of the meeting will be to assess the infrastructure of the manufacturing units, their cultivation and procurement practices and its equivalence/ conformance to the EU written confirmation. Secondly the government has also agreed to move a paper with EU government basing on the facts as assessed.

Apart from Sudhanshu Pandey, officials from ministry of health, department of Ayush and DCGI are also expected to take part in the meeting.