Hyderabad, Apr 18 (FN Representative) Anticipating a big growth in Indian vaccine exports in the coming years, Pharmaceutical Exports Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil) on Sunday said that the government policy on PLI ( Production Linked Incentive Scheme) scheme will also help the Indian pharma to grow by reducing import dependence and develop export potential in the days to come as most of the countries are looking at India for APIs (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient). Though the Covid-19 pandemic has pushed several economies and businesses to the brink, India’s pharmaceutical industry stood strong at such a crucial period with robust growth in exports and contributing to the wellbeing of the nations across the world, Pharmexcil said in a statement here.
When the global pharma market is negatively grown by 1-2 per cent in 2020, there is a big surge in demand for Indian made generics owing to its quality and affordability. Drug formulations and Biologicals is the second largest Principal commodity being exported by India, it said. As per the Department of Commerce, Government of India, Drugs and Pharmaceutical Exports for the FY-21 (April 2020 – March 2021) has touched USD 24.44 Billion with a record growth of 18.07 per cent against 7.57 growth the previous year. During the FY 2020 , Indian exports were USD 20.58 billion. We have observed a big leap in Indian exports in the month of March 2021 , which is USD 2.3 billion (figures for March are provisional) and is highest among the exports of all the months of this financial year, the growth rate for this month is 48.5 per cent against the exports in March 2020 (USD 1.54 Bn), it revealed.
Growth rate seems relatively big as the exports of March 2020 was crunched due to lockdown across the world and supply chain disruption. Pharma exports are substantially growing all these years and we have observed the highest export figures and growth rate in this financial year compared to the last 8 financial years. We are expecting the same trend to continue further owing to increased demand of Indian made generics and vaccines, it said. According to Pharmexcil, Pharma exports to all regions have done well with the growth rates never seen before and North America is the largest exporting region for Indian pharmaceuticals with more than 34 per cent share followed by South Africa ( 28%), the second largest exporting country, Africa ( 13.4%) and Europe (11 %). There is growing demand for Indian products in non-traditional markets – LAC ( Latin Amercia and Caribean ) with 14.5 percent growth , CIS with 23.5 percent growth and Middle East with 17.5 percent growth , the statement added.