With a view to focus on the exports of herbal products, the Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil) recently organised a programme called market quick start programme in three major cities. This programme was aimed at facilitating and pushing the small and medium enterprises (SME's) belonging to the traditional, herbals and natural products industry to expand their export.

The programme which was particularly aimed at exploring export opportunities in North America and European markets was co organised and supported by HADSA and New Hope, USA. It was focused on sensitising and exposing the exporters of the traditional, herbal, nutraceutical products to enter US and European markets.

According to Dr P V Appaji, executive director, Pharmexcil, “The Indian companies need to understand that when doing business with foreign countries they must be aware of the rules and regulations prevalent in that place so that they can tap the market and the opportunities it provides accordingly. Our main aim through this programme was to sensitise the Indian manufacturer's of traditional medicines on the requirements of the foreign countries so that they can recognise the same and mould their strategy accordingly.”

Apart from that, it also provided an ideal platform for foreign traders to discover and understand the traditional market for which India has a huge potential. Indian manufacturers should be able to gauge the expectations of the foreign regulators and also on what new laws they are planning to enforce that may impact the interest of the Indian exporters in future.

“Based on the tremendous response that we received from this programme, we have decided to conduct more of such events focused specifically on the traditional sector so that they can get a much needed boost for exports,” Dr Appaji said.

He pointed out that in spite of having a strong presence in the Indian market the traditional sector which consist of herbal, Ayurvedic, Unani, nutraceutical products etc. is not able to bridge the gap and create a forte for exports like the pharma sector because they do not have proper documentation and scientific data to support the demands of the western nations. Dr Appaji urged that the government should initiate steps to project the ayurvedic industry by motivating and supporting the manufacturers to produce scientific data and documents for the products that are manufactured by them.

The market quick start programme was organised in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore and was attended by 80 delegates in Mumbai, 40 in Hyderabad and 40 in Bengaluru respectively.