With a view to strengthen its ties with the middle eastern regions, the Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil) organised a high level business meet with the delegates  from the Middle Eastern countries in Mumbai recently. This is the first time that Pharmexcil had organised such an interactive session with the Middle Eastern countries, to promote pharma exports to these regions.

Dr P V Appaji, executive director, Pharmexcil informed that the Council had organised this meet strategically, keeping in mind to exploit business opportunities arising out of the CPhI event in Mumbai from November 30 to December 2.

He said, “We are very happy with the kind of response we had received from this buyer-seller meet and would ensure that we continue to have this kind of collaborative work with them in future as well to promote our exports. In fact Pharmexcil is planning to take a delegation to the middle eastern countries in 2012 to further consolidate the gains from this meet.”

About 50 delegates from United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Oman, Qatar, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Jordan had participated in this buyer-seller meet, where they met and interacted with 150 Indian manufacturers from the small and medium scale pharma industries from across the country.

Dr Appaji said, “The representatives from these countries had detailed discussions with their Indian counterparts during the two-day meet, where they had one-to-one interaction with the other to explore business opportunities in future. In fact, the foreign delegates acknowledged that they were very impressed by the capabilities of the Indian manufacturers to supply quality medicines at affordable rates and stressed on strengthening their business ties.”

Dr Appaji informed that the participants have already initiated the process of business deals especially in the API's and neutraceuticals segment, since they do not require to complete regulatory requirements before an agreement. Further many countries have agreed to enter into an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indian companies for  pharma products as well, but the process will take a little while to complete, as the products needs to be first registered in the country where it is to be exported.

As per the data provided by Pharmexcil, India has 30 per cent of market share in the Asian market out of which 10 per cent comes from  Middle Eastern countries alone. Dr Appaji added that since Middle Eastern countries have a lot of export potential it should be tapped appropriately by the Indian companies to expand their business in these regions.