The government must not make any agreement with India at the cost of industry which is currently making all-out efforts to survive in the presence of acute energy crisis, rising inflation and widespread corruption. This was the upshot of the speeches delivered at a seminar on 'Most Favoured Nation status to India', organised by LCCI standing committee on pharmaceuticals here at Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
LCCI President Irfan Qaiser was chief guest while vice chairman of Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, Tariq Ikram, Mujeeb Ahmad Khan, head of WTO Cell, TDAP, and convenor of LCCI standing committee Amjad Ali Jawa also spoke. The LCCI President said that pharmaceutical industry requires some special safeguards before notification of MFN status to India, as the Indian pharma sector is almost 10 times bigger than that of Pakistan. Moreover, there is no match between them if we compare the pricing structure, R&D, cost of production, innovative scientific manpower of two countries".
He said that Pakistan's pharma industry cannot compete with Indian pharma industry, which comes at 3rd place in the world, in terms of volume. Other speakers were Tariq Ikram, Mujeeb Ahmad Khan, and Amjad Ali Jawa. They drew comparison between the pharma sectors of the two countries and said that the size of the Indian pharma sector is around $15 billion with an annual growth of 10 percent while the size of Pakistan's pharma sector is $1.6 billion.
They said that there are 20,000 phrama companies in India while in Pakistan the number of pharmaceutical manufacturers is only 600. In India, there is an active central pricing board, which reviews prices of drugs every six month, while in Pakistan there is no drug pricing policy. They said that how Pakistan's pharma sector could face India where there is a low cost of production, low R&D cost and an innovative scientific manpower and increasing balance of trade against a high cost of Production and high cost of R&D in Pakistan.
The speakers said that Indian pharmaceutical sector has 13 percent share in the world market whereas Pakistan's share in the global market is only one percent. Above all, they said, the basic raw materials are locally available in India as their raw material manufacturing industry is better established whereas in Pakistan most of the raw materials are imported.
They said that Indian pharma sector is far ahead of Pakistan in terms of new technology and R&D for biotech medication while Pakistan is far behind in the area. In his concluding remarks, Amjad Ali said that Pharma industry is not just like any other industry, but is a second line of defence in case of floods, earthquakes and war and Pakistan must not rely on India for supply of medicines. He said that it is an internationally recognised fact that quality of Pakistani products is far superior to what are manufactured in India.