Pharmaceutical exports in 1998-99 grew at a slow pace, only 13 per cent to Rs 6,152 crore from around Rs 5,400 crore in 1997-98.

The ministry of chemicals and fertilisers is in the process of identifying other promotional efforts to encourage pharmaceutical exports from India.The ministry had earlier set up a pharmaceutical export cell to act as nodal centre for promotion of pharmaceutical exports and to address the day-to-day problems faced by pharma exporters.

The cell has already initiated various promotional efforts for boosting pharma exports and has written to about 180 Indian missions abroad to collect a wide gamut of information related to the status of pharma industry in these countries.

The cell has collected valuable information from about 60 countries, which has been passed on to the industry.

The Indian pharma industry too has shown keen interest in pushing exports with the help of this newly constituted cell, and as many as 31 companies have asked for information about various countries to identify new areas of exports and expand their export market.

After pushing through the research and development fund for encouraging research in India, this is being seen as a major step, which will help the pharma companies explore the abundant export market for pharmaceuticals existing especially in some of the untapped markets.

The cell has been active in resolving complaints regarding the quality of Indian pharma exporters. The cell has taken up the issue with individual companies.

The cell had earlier organised a visit by a team of Russian experts to India to explore the possibilities accreditation of Indian testing laboratories for pre-shipment inspection of pharmaceutical exports to Russia.

As a result, 17 companies exporting to Russia were exempted from batch-to-batch testing prior to exports to Russia. More than 60 other Indian pharma companies are expected to get this exemption. Although the Indian pharma industry is one of the largest among developing countries, it is ranked fifth in terms of volume.

However, because of low drug prices, its global share is a meagre 1 per cent, thus making it the 14th largest in the world.

The major components which constitute India's drug exports include fine chemicals, intermediates and bulk drugs, finished pharmaceutical preparations and crude drugs.

The CIS countries are the biggest consumers of Indian drugs and formulations accounting for a massive 33 per cent share in exports followed by Europe and the US.