The central government may reimburse the additional freight cost incurred by pharmaceutical companies that choose to avoid the European Union route to ship their medicines to destinations in South America and Africa.
The Department of Pharmaceuticals has already initiated discussions with other government departments to introduce such a “reimbursement scheme”, officials informed.
The move comes in the wake of increased seizures of Indian medicines in transit by Customs authorities in European countries. Even though the medicines are not destined for European locations, Customs authorities in EU member countries are empowered to confiscate any medicine that is likely to be spurious or counterfeit though they are being shipped to developing countries. India considers such interventions as non-tariff-barriers to trade.
Leading drug makers like Dr Reddy’s, Aurobindo, Ind-Swift and Cipla have all found their medicine consignments being confiscated by EU Customs authorities in the recent past.
The department is also known to have written to the commerce ministry to take up the issue of unlawful confiscation of Indian drug consignments at the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement body. The offer for reimbursement is meant to be an incentive for exporters who wants to take longer and expensive routes to fulfil their export commitments.
Similarly, the Department of Pharmaceuticals had on August 3 signed an agreement with a Nigerian delegation, headed by its drug regulator Paul B Orhii, to combat all spurious and counterfeit drug issues relating to Indian exports to Nigeria.
“We have signed an agreement to undertake collaborative efforts to weed out fake medicines in the Nigerian market. A list of registered Indian drugmakers will be provided to Nigeria to enable direct sale from authentic sources. Similarly, misrepresentations arising out of definitions of fake, spurious, substandard and counterfeit drugs will be handled separately,” officials said.
Currently, Nigeria considers all unregistered medicines seized in the country as “counterfeit”.
During 2008-09, Indian pharma exports were Rs 38,433 crore, recording 24.94 per cent growth compared with Rs 30,760 crore for 2007-08.
Source : Business Standard