Sri Lanka To Import Pharmaceuticals From Bangladesh

Health minister Mohammed Nasim signed a MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with visiting Lankan health minister Maithripala Sirisena in this regard on Monday. The signing ceremony, held at the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, was also attended by high officials of the ministry.

Sri Lanka has already provided a list of pharmaceutical products and medical equipments what they want to outsource from Bangladesh, said health minister Mohammad Nasim while talking to journalist after the meeting. “It will be a solely government to government initiative,” said the minister adding that the government will soon form a committee to monitor the exports. Representatives of both sides will be on the committee, Nasim said.

Dwelling on bilateral relations between the two countries, the Lankan minister said his country maintains good relations with Bangladesh since its independence. The friendship between the countries will be much stronger through this initiative, also said the Lankan minister.

Earlier, government representatives visited Srilanka in March last with a view to expanding trade volume with Srilanka.

Talking to this correspondent, Essential Drugs Company Limited (EDCL) chief executive officer (CEO) Dr Md. Kadrul Huda said the country has all the potentialities to meet the export demands of pharmaceutical products from foreign buyers.

The Lankan team expressed their keen interest to outsource some 529 types of medicines from the country, said the CEO. EDCL is a 100 per cent state owned Pharmaceuticals Company in Bangladesh. Its main objective is to manufacture quality drugs at an affordable price and supply to the government hospital and other health institutions.

According to EDCL CEO, Sri Lanka imports drugs and medical equipments worth about Tk 3,000-4,000 crore from the neibouring India every year and is heavily dependent on India for medical products.

“We want to explore the Lankan pharmaceuticals market,” said Huda adding that the government is planning to export the pharmaceutical products as per the requirement of Sri Lanka. EDCL along with some leading pharmaceutical companies will supply the medical products to the Lankan Market.

The Lankan visitors are highly impressed about the country’s pharmaceutical products, their qualities and prices, said the EDCL CEO. “The price will be fixed as per the international standard price”, he also said. “If we can export medicine of Lankan requirements, it is possible to earn more than Tk 1,000 crore in 2015”, Huda also said..

According to EPB statistics, country’s export volume stood at $ 23.60 million to Srilanka against import of $ 39.60 in the fiscal year 2012-13. Country’s trade gap with Srilanka can reduce substantially through exporting pharmaceutical products to the island country, said the EDCL CEO.