Indian Drug Manufacturers Association (IDMA) and Chinese Pharmaceutical Industry Association (CPIA) have finalized all the major clauses of cooperation between the two industry bodies as a prelude to formally signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the exhibition venue of API China & Interphex China in Suzhou, a smaller city near Shanghai on November 9.

A delegation of IDMA led by its president, N R Munjal and five others have been to Suzhou for the purpose last week. The MoU is expected to be signed most probably in January next year.

The CPIA  delegation included  Zhang Mingyu, vice chairman, Zhou Yan, secretary general and  Shen Xianji,  specialist committee vice director.

The MoU is for a period of three years and will be jointly decided to renew the same after assessing the situation then. Talks for such an arrangement have been going on between these two industry bodies with the increasing trend of import of APIs, intermediates and other chemicals from China to India. A few Indian companies are also exporting some quantities of APIs and finished formulations to China.

Briefing about the MoU, Munjal said, “in Suzhou that as a part of first action of this initiative, IDMA will launch a website with regular uploading of Chinese laws relating to import & export, Indian drug regulations including latest notifications, FDI norms, etc. This is expected to help pharma companies, importers, exporters of both countries.”

He said that “apart from import and export of APIs and intermediates between the two countries, possibilities of industry collaboration in the form of joint ventures will also be explored by the associations as both the countries are strong global pharmaceutical players today. Some India’s joint ventures with Aurobindo, Dishman and Dr.Reddy’s are already operating successfully in China. At the same time there are no such ventures launched in India by the Chinese pharmaceutical companies as yet.”

China has also made notable advances in certain key allied sector industries such as gelatine capsule production, glass bottle manufacturing and pharmaceutical machinery making during the last few years. There are about 100 gelatine capsule manufacturers and 200 glass bottle makers in China. Nearly 30 per cent of these units are large and medium scale ones making good quality products.