TOUTING the country’s capacity to grow natural ingredients for medicines, the government is pitching the Philippines to become India’s production hub in Southeast Asia for pharmaceuticals.
In a webinar last week, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) asked Indian drug makers to make the Philippines their manufacturing hub in Southeast Asia. Senen M. Perlada, director at the DTI’s Export Marketing Bureau, argued the country is ideal for medicine production, as it has capacity to produce natural components for drugs.
“Maybe India’s hesitation is the scale, [but] think of the Asean market, not just the Philippine market,” Perlada said.
“Our country will be a good—if not the best—hub to manufacture,” he added. “We have a lot of natural ingredients that have found their way to pharmaceuticals like moringa [or] malunggay, yellow ginger, virgin coconut oil and others.”
Further, Board of Investments Director Evariste M. Cagatan said there is growth potential in the domestic industry, and this could be realized if Indian firms make the leap of opening factories in the country.
Citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Cagatan reported there are at least 46 manufacturers, 650 importers and 4,800 distributors serving the local demand of around $4.5 billion. He also shared the IHS Markit forecast that pharmaceutical sales here will grow by 7.18 percent from 2022 to 2028.
When compared regionally, the projected growth rate for economies in Asia and the Pacific is just 6.39 percent.
Philippine Ambassador to India Ramon S. Bagatsing Jr. recommended the reactivation of the Philippine-India Joint Working Group in Trade and Investments that last had a meeting in 2016. Likewise, he said Manila might just entice New Delhi to invest if they agree on a memorandum of understanding on investment protection.
As well, Bagatsing endorsed the idea of concluding the cooperation in medical products regulation between the Food and Drug Administration and India’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation to make it easy for Indian pharmaceuticals to locate here.
In the fight against Covid-19, two Indian firms are supplying 90 percent of the treatment drug remdesivir to the Philippines, while two more are interested to provide this medicine. Bagatsing said he expects India to allocate coronavirus vaccine—should it develop one—to the country in line with its Act East policy.
Last year, two-way trade between the Philippines and India remained unchanged from 2019 at $2.37 billion based on PSA records.
However, shipments to India declined nearly 9 percent to $545.44 million, from $598.53 million. On the other hand, imports from India grew roughly 3 percent to $1.82 billion, from $1.77 billion on increased purchase of transport materials, petroleum and pharmaceuticals.
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