Hand sanitizers: PSMA wants production control given under PSQCA domain

Pakistan Soap Manufacturers Association (PSMA) has urged the federal government that production of hand sanitizers should also be given under the domain of Pakistan Standard Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) instead of Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP).

Zafar Mahmood, Chairman PSMA, has informed that recently, DRAP has issued a notification and taken over the control of hand sanitizers as regulated item like it does for pharmaceutical products by only allowing pharmaceutical companies to produce. The action has been taken without consultation of soap industry, which the major producers of hand sanitizers, he said.

Actually, hand sanitizer is a personal care product like soap, which requires certain quality standards and PSQCA has already set standards for personal care, food and number of other products and is strictly monitoring it, he mentioned.

"Hand sanitizers should also be given under PSQCA's domain and DRAP's notification on regulating hand sanitizers must immediately be withdrawn, otherwise its production would face a massive fall, resulted in shortage in the domestic market," he added.

The Chairman PSMA said that soaps and hand sanitizers are the only products which have been found effective for protection against the spread of Coronavirus. Owing to rapid spread of Covid-19, the global demand of general consumer goods has decreased substantially.

Resultantly, Pakistan's exports are expected to drop by over $4 billion during the current fiscal year, while, the demand of essential goods has surged manifold, Zafar mentioned.

"Certain items like soap and hand sanitizers are in acute shortage all over the world and it is indeed a good time to capitalize on this opportunity and start exporting these essential goods which will help the country in minimizing the shortfall in exports", he mentioned.

He informed that Pakistan has surplus production capacity of soap and Pakistan can earn millions of dollar foreign exchange by exporting this surplus product.

Few members of PSMA are regularly exporting soap to Afghanistan, which is currently stopped due to stoppage of movement of containers to Afghanistan; he said and added that the federal government has recently decided to facilitate the movement of cargo trucks and containers to cross-over to Afghanistan through Torkham and Chaman borders thrice a week. A similar mechanism may also be devised for direct exports from Pakistan to Afghanistan, he demanded.

He further said the basic raw material for hand sanitizer is Ethanol and Pakistan's production of Ethanol is approximately 0.5 million tons per annum and less than 5 percent of this is consumed within the country while 95 percent is being exported.

There is need to remove the ban on export of hand sanitizers and allow the industry to produce and export hand sanitizers. The export of Ethanol should be controlled by giving first priority to local production. Only surplus capacity after meeting domestic demand should be allowed for exports, Chairman PSMA suggested.