Vietnam spent $963.3 million on the imports of pharmaceutical products in the first six months of this year, rising by 8.23% against the same period last year, said the Vietnam Industry and Trade Information Center. India became the biggest supplier as it exported $131.1 million worth of pharmaceutical products to Vietnam during the period, increasing by 13.54% and accounting for 13.6% of Vietnam’s total pharmaceutical import value. France ranked second with a value of $106.6 million though its pharmaceutical exports to Vietnam dropped 17.33% on year, followed by Germany with $95.9 million, up 35.18%. Vietnam’s pharmaceutical imports from India, France, Germany, South Korea, U.K., Italy, Switzerland, the U.S., Belgium and Thailand were estimated at $670.1 million during the period. There are around 25,000 pharmaceutical products eligible for circulation in Vietnam. Recently, the Drug Administration of Vietnam has banned medicine imports from around 66 foreign pharmaceutical companies, including 45 Indian ones, due to not-of-standard quality (NSQ). Besides the Indian companies, nine from South Korea, two from Bangladesh, two from France, and one each from the U.S., Philippines, Pakistan, Russia, Indonesia, Germany, Cyprus, and Canada have been prohibited. This is not the first time Vietnam has banned pharmaceutical imports from Indian companies. About two years ago, it had banned 19 Indian firms on the same ground. Some industry experts, however, feel this could be a Chinese ploy to malign Indian companies. “Vietnam depends on India for procuring drugs. In recent years, Chinese interference in the markets has been observed. But China is not yet at par with India in manufacturing finished drugs,” TR Gopalakrishnan, advisor, Indian Drug Manufacturers’ Association (IDMA), said. “It should be noted that Vietnam hasn’t banned any Chinese company.” Vietnam expects to increase the use of domestically made drugs in healthcare to 60% by 2015 from the current 50%. The domestic pharmaceutical sector imports up to 90% of their materials. It is estimated that Vietnamese people spend $2 billion-$2.3 billion on medications and the country imports $1 billion worth of drugs per year. (chinhphu.vn Jul 23, vinanet.vn Jul 23)
