The Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) has demanded of the government to increase the prices of locally manufactured medicines by 10 percent and withdraw the Input Sales Tax (IST)on packaging materials.
Addressing a roundtable discussion on 'Exports of Pharmaceuticals from Pakistan - Why We are Lagging Behind' on Wednesday, office-bearers of the PPMA claimed that no price increase was allowed on any pharmaceutical product from 2001, as the income cost has gone up by 30-60 percent.
They also sought up to five- percent reduction in Custom's duties presently ranging 5-25 percent on imports of raw materials, terming it a major factor behind increased cost of product. The PPMA office-bearers also demanded elimination of two percent Workers' Welfare Fund (WWF) on profit before reducing five percent Workers Profit Participation Fund (WPPF) taxes saying that the reserves of these levies were lying idle and did not help the workers at all.
'The industry is facing severe crisis and the government should either reduce the duties and sales tax or let us increase the prices of medicines', said the CEO of Getz Pharma, Khalid Mehmood.
Presently Pakistani has Pharma export of $101 million, growing at an annual rate of 22 percent, if the export volume is doubled, the sector would be included in LTF (Long Term Financing) and facilitated by the government, he added.
Further, he said that the government should allow import of machinery and instruments required for pharma production at zero duty and a clear procedure of Sales Tax Reimbursements should be devised for tax levied on the inputs used in exported pharma goods.
'We would also press the government to form a dedicated council that could deal all pharma related matters through one-window operation', said Mehmood. 'Clinical Research Organisations (CRO)s and Accredited Labs play a vital role in development of pharma industry and Pakistan has had no such accredited lab besides, the country lacks FDA-WHO approved facilities.
An accreditation pharma plant by the WHO costs Rs 1-2 billion besides $2-3 million as its annual expenditures on validation and certification, while India owns 72 FDA- approved plants and 58 CROs. Other office-bearers of the PPMA, Dr Kaiser Waheed and Rashid Butt also endorsed the view that Pakistan has the lowest price medicines with highest infrastructure and operating cost in the world.
Furthermore, 667 pharmaceutical companies were functional in Pakistan with 31 multinational companies and out of those, 405 have had their own manufacturing units in the country. It is worth mentioning that Pakistan's local industry meets about 90 percent of country's medicine requirement.
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