Pharma exports declined by 4% during first five month

Pharma exports from India registered a negative growth of 4 per cent during the first five months of the current fiscal owing to increased regulatory issues coupled with pricing pressure in global markets.

According to Udaya Bhaskar, the Director General of the Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil), a Ministry of Commerce and Industry body, the pharma exports to other countries witnessed a decline of 7.9 per cent during the April-July period while recovered to 4 per cent in August leaving the overall growth at minus four per cent till August this year.

Udaya Bhaskar told "Till July, pharma exports registered minus 7.9 per cent growth. Subsequently it recovered in August and stood at minus four per cent. There was four per cent growth in August. Pricing pressure is one of the factors (for decline in exports). To some extent import alerts (by US FDA on Indian plants), regulatory issues and currency fluctuation, are some of the factors contributed to downward growth.” .

"We expect the overall growth for the year would be in the positive. Implementation of GST also created initially some confusion among the manufacturers leading to stoppage of production by some companies. Now we are seeing some growth," he further said.

According to statistics, India exported USD 16.90 billion worth of pharma products during 2015-16 and the same was slightly declined in 2016-17 to USD 16.64 billion in 2016-17.