Pharma exports from India witnessed over 18 per cent growth to $24.44 billion during the last financial year against $20.58 billion in FY20, Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil) said.
“We have observed a big leap in our exports in the month of March 2021 which is $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 ($1.54 billion),” Udaya Bhaskar, Director General of Pharmexcil said in a release.
The growth rate seems relatively big as the exports of March 2020 were crunched due to lockdown across the world and supply chain disruption, he was quoted as saying.
When the global pharma market has 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, the official said adding drug formulations and biologicals is the second-largest principal commodity being exported by India.
The Pharma exports body is expecting big growth in Indian vaccine exports in the coming years and the government policy on PLI (production-linked incentive) scheme will also help the domestic 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, he said.
North America is the largest exporting region for Indian pharma with more than 34 per cent share. Country-wise exports to the US, Canada and Mexico have recorded a growth of 12.6, 30 and 21.4 per cent respectively. South Africa being the second largest exporting country, recorded a big jump of 28 per cent growth while Europe was the third-largest exporting region which has recorded approximately 11 per cent growth over the previous year.
(Edits by EP News Bureau)