Sri Lanka’s pharmaceutical sector taps increasing potential to penetrate Vietnamese market
Daily FT: The Embassy of Sri Lanka in collaboration with Export Development Board (EDB) organised a webinar on “Sri Lankan Pharmaceutical Industry” for Vietnamese pharmaceutical companies a couple of days before the Medipharm Expo 2024 in Ho Chi Minh (HCM) city.
This was organised in order to raise the awareness as well as the potential of the Sri Lankan pharma sector to leading importers and manufacturers of pharma in Viet Nam. The webinar was attended by over 100 pharma companies in Viet Nam, Drug Authority of VietNam and Viet Nam Pharmaceutical Association along with the Sri Lankan pharma companies which are participating at the aforementioned Medipharma Expo 2024.
Ambassador A. Saj U. Mendis, delivering the welcome remarks, mentioned that although the pharmaceutical manufacturing in Sri Lanka is modest in its scale and scope when compared with VietNam, the quality of drugs produced in Sri Lanka is quite high and impressive adhering to the international standards such as ISO, WHO and EU GMP standards maintained by the industry.
Ambassador Mendis further stated that the Sri Lankan pharma companies are much eager and keen to associate, engage, form joint ventures, and to export to the Vietnamese market. He further stated that Viet Nam boasts a large pharma market in excess of $ 10 billion and envisages it to reach $ 16 billion within the next couple of years. Mendis further added that Viet Nam is a rapidly developing economy, which could be described as amongst the fastest growing economies in the world, with a population of 100 million.
OSL take:
Sri Lanka’s healthcare industry, especially the pharmaceutical sector, has shown an expansion in the past few months indicating the overall growth in business/investment opportunities in the industry. The Sri Lankan government has also understood the growing potential in the pharmaceutical industry resulting in the introduction of incentive schemes for interested foreign businesses/investors as well as proposing the setting up of pharma manufacturing zones to expand the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector. The many trade agreements and trade concessions enjoyed by Sri Lanka with other countries and Sri Lanka’s strong bilateral ties with other countries have all helped boost the business/investment opportunities in the country’s pharmaceutical sector. The ongoing promotional campaigns by local export authorities in foreign countries will further expand opportunities in Sri Lanka’s pharmaceutical manufacturing sector. There are also business/investment opportunities in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals in Sri Lanka targeting the requirements of the local market.