Term Paper on Prospect of Export Oriented Medicine Industry in Bangladesh

As a country of Bangladesh, we must think more & more on our exports. Our export has been from garments, which is now under threat So, we must concentrate on other export industries like leather, pharmaceuticals, information technology, mashrooms etc. But in the recent year pharmaceuticals is one of the most progressive industry in Bangladesh. So this industry has a huge prospect in other countries of the world. For this I tried to give a short analysis on leather industry of Bangladesh. Before this I like to thanks to my respective teacher Dr. Khondoker Bazlul Hoque, Professor of Department of International Business.
The pharmaceutical industry, however, like all other sectors in Bangladesh, was much neglected during Pakistan regime. Most multinational companies had their production facilities in West Pakistan. With the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971, the country inherited a poor base of pharmaceutical industry. For several years after liberation, the government could not increase budgetary allocations for the health sector. Millions of people had little access to essential life saving medicines.
In 1981, there were 166 licensed pharmaceutical manufacturers in the country, but local production was dominated by eight multinational companies (MNCs) which manufactured about 75% of the products. There were 25 medium sized local companies which manufactured 15% of the products and the remaining 10% were produced by other 133 small local companies. All these companies were mainly engaged in formulation out of imported raw materials involving an expenditure of Tk 600 million in foreign exchange. In spite of having 166 local pharmaceutical production units, the country had to spend nearly Tk 300 million on importing finished medicinal products. A positive impact of the Drug (Control) Ordinance of 1982 was that the limited available foreign currency was exclusively utilised for import of pharmaceutical raw materials and finished drugs, which are not produced in the country. The value of locally produced medicines rose from Tk 1.1 billion in 1981 to Tk 16.9 billion in 1999. At present, 95% of the total demand of medicinal products is met by local production. Local companies (LCs) increased their share from 25% to 70% on total annual production between 1981 and 2000.

In 2000, there were 210 licensed allopathic drug-manufacturing units in the country, out of which only 173 were on active production; others were either closed down on their own or suspended by the licensing authority for drugs due to non compliance to GMP or drug laws. They manufactured about 5,600 brands of medicines in different dosage forms. There were, however, 1,495 wholesale drug license holders and about 37,700 retail drug license holders in Bangladesh.
Indeed, the foreign currency earnings prospects of the pharmaceutical sector are considered to be no less than the readymade garment (RMG) which is presently the single biggest export earning sector of the country. With steady promotional activities favoring the local pharmaceutical industries, This is the view of experts.
these in the near future may overtake the readymade garment sector in export earnings.
Reportedly, the country earned the equivalent of 1.3 billion Taka from medicine export in fiscal year 2004-5, Taka 1.84 billion in 2005-6 and Taka 1.94 billion in 2006-7. More than taka 5 billion worth of pharmaceutical products have been exported so far in the current year. From the way medicine export from Bangladesh is picking up, it is projected that export earnings from this sector can rise to some 50 billion Taka in the medium term. The higher earnings show that the pharmaceutical industry has been doing progressively better an upward progression in the export of medicines is noted . This is no doubt heartening news in the backdrop of the pressing need to diversify export products and earn more from exports to add to the foreign currency reserve .

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