Department Of
Pharmaceutical To Study Factors Affecting Competitiveness
Of Indian Medical Devices In Domestic Market
Keen on
pushing the interest of the medical device sector, the
department of pharmaceutical (DoP) is soon planning to
initiate a nationwide study to scrutinise why the domestic
manufacturers are not able to get proper market
opportunities in spite of having substantial export
market. To gauge the factors affecting competitiveness of
Indian medical consumables, DoP called a high level
meeting with key stakeholders from the industry.
The focus
of the meeting was to explore the reasons for losing out
to competing imports and identify the roadblocks that
hamper the growth of domestic sector from within. Experts
state that unfair market conditions, lack of proper
regulatory guidelines coupled with partial attitude that
is duly focused on imports are key reasons for lack of
dominance of domestic manufacturers in the country albeit
having huge potential and required expertise to export to
other countries.
It is
understood that through this initiative the government
intends to aid the industry by providing infrastructural
support to the deserving companies, while tweak
preferential market access and public procurement policy
as per the needs of the sector to benefit the industry.
Rajiv Nath, forum coordinator of Association of Indian
Medical Device Industry (AIMED) informed that the industry
is looking forward to be part of this initiative as it
comes as a welcome move finally taken to address the
concerns of the industry.
“It is high
time to finally confront the reality on why Indian
manufacturers are not able to get the opportunity to
expand their business within the country, even when we
have the expertise for the same. The government must take
cognisance of the fact that unfair market practices is
rampant in the country due to competition from lower cost
imports of China and other countries, contributed due to
low duties and 17 percent subsidy by China on Chinese
exports; competition from MNCs which are either
not putting any MRP or putting very high MRP as desired by
corporate hospitals are some of the major factors
affecting us,” stressed Nath.
He further
added that proactiveness from the government to tackle
these issues is the need of the hour to protect the
interest of the stakeholders, who are currently suffering
silently due to Centre’s indifference.
(Ref:
http://www.pharmabiz.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?aid=89723&sid=1)
Government to
Soon Remove Duty Anomalies in Medical Devices Sector
New Delhi:
The government is working on several steps, including
removing duty anomalies, to boost medical devices
manufacturing sector and make it a $50-billion industry in
the next five years, as per a top official.
Secretary
in the Department of Pharmaceuticals V K Subburaj said
that soon recommendations will be made to rectify the
inverted duty structure for the growing medical devices
sector.
He said the
departments of health and pharmaceuticals along with the
Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) are
working on the matter and soon they will make
recommendations to the Revenue Department on the issue.
An inverted
duty structure impacts domestic industry adversely as
manufacturers have to pay a higher price for raw material
in terms of duty, while imported finished products land at
lower duty and cost lesser. “The important hurdle (which
the sector is facing) is the regulatory mechanism The duty
structure has to be modified. Health, DIPP and Pharma are
jointly discussing the issue to finalise the
recommendations as per the opinion of Mr Subburaj at a CII
function.
Domestic
medical devices makers have been asking the government to
address this issue. “We will ensure that this deficiency
gets corrected very shortly. That will set the tone for
medical devices industry in the country,” he added.
Commenting
on the potential of the sector, he said: “Now we have to
scale it to $50 billion and to enable that, we have to
take policy decisions.” Currently, the medical devices
industry in India is estimated to be $5 billion annually.
The
secretary also said the department is working to create a
separate vertical for medical devices in the Drugs and
Cosmetics Act.
“Once it
becomes a $50-billion industry, I do not think we can
afford to combine it with the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.
There should be a separate Act for the sector. We have
combined it with drugs for long and that mistake is likely
to be sorted out shortly. I think very shortly we will
have a separate vertical within this Act exclusively for
medical devices,” Mr Subburaj said.
To give an
identity to the subject, he said, the government has
empowered the Pharmaceuticals Department to take the
medical devices sector.
Earlier,
different departments were handling different issues
related with the sector, such as quality control was
looked after by the Health ministry, FDI by the DIPP and
export was taken care by the Commerce Ministry.
The
department, he said, is also working on the issue of the
preference purchase procedures.
“We are
discussing with the electronics and MSME departments to
see that products manufactured in India, especially made
by medium and small scale sector, get preference for
purchase,” he said.
(Ref:
http://profit.ndtv.com/news/pharma/article-government-to-soonremove-duty-anomalies-in-medical-devices-sector-1211936)
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