MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentina promises to review ban on Indian imported pharmaceutical products
Ministers Scindia and Giorgi exchange gifts Argentina has assured India of reviewing a ban on imported pharmaceutical products and announced the purchase of drugs worth 150-200 million US dollars from Indian firms, a statement said Wednesday.
The assurance came from Argentina’s Minister of Industry Debora Giorgi during a meeting with her Indian counterpart Jyotiraditya Scindia in Buenos Aires late Tuesday, a statement from the Indian Commerce ministry said.
Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya Scindia raised issues relating to restriction of Indian firms from exporting pharmaceutical products to Argentina and difficulties for Indian businessmen to obtain Argentine visas.
He said these issues needed to be resolved if bilateral trade and investment were to grow.
“The Indian pharmaceutical industry is among the world largest and most developed. Increased market access of Indian products can benefit both the countries” Scindia said in the statement.
The announcement comes when Argentina is pressing foreign laboratories to comply with a non written policy of import-export dollar for dollar. This means pharmaceutical companies established in Argentina will have to implement a policy that balances imports with exports if they wish to continue operations in the country.
The policy has already been applied and successfully with the auto industry.
Minister Scindia (who is on a 10-day tour to Mercosur member countries) emphasized on the need to deepen the existing preferential trade agreement (PTA) with Mercosur. On Monday Scindia also raised the issue of broadening the PTA and pushed for bilateral investment promotion and protection agreements with Uruguay.
Emphasizing on the need for deepening engagement with Latin American countries, the minister also identified potential areas of cooperation, including automobiles, information technology, oil, gas, textiles, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. However Scindia also identified double tax avoidance agreement, bilateral investment promotion and protection agreement as critical future steps.
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Read all commentspharmaceutical products from India? No, thanks! I would by from the Canadians .....
May 04th, 2011 - 08:02 pm 0“The announcement comes when Argentina is pressing foreign laboratories to comply with a *non written policy of import-export dollar for dollar*.
May 04th, 2011 - 08:11 pm 0This means pharmaceutical companies established in Argentina will have to implement a policy that balances imports with exports if they wish to continue operations in the country.”
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Perhaps dollar-for-dollar Argentinan Ibuprofen will travel East (West?) as Indian Paracetamol flies in the opposite direction.
. . . and Argentinian Paracetamol will pass Indian Ibuprofen in mid-air.
Will Generic drugs flight be dollar-for-dollar-priced less than Branded drugs flights?
Perhaps CFK should instruct her team to adopt something called ‘flexibility of approach’ otherwise all she will receive is opprobrium as a Trade-Blocker.
Another major problem arises when countries *without* patent protection/IPR have to trade with countries *with* PP/IPR.
Another major problem arises when quality standards of an exporting company/country do not meet the minimum requirements of the country to which the goods are going. How does Dollar-For-Dollar agreements get round this problem?
Why the ban? Does it have anything to do with intellectual property issues? AFAIK, most Indian pharmaceutical exports are generic products. That could well be the case.
May 04th, 2011 - 09:08 pm 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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