Medicine producers' association optimistic about AFTA
Medicine producers' association optimistic about AFTA
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Facing the full implementation of the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) in a few years, the country's pharmaceutical industry is upbeat it can play a dominant role in the massive regional market.
The chairman of the Indonesian Pharmaceutical Association (GP Farmasi Indonesia), Anthony C. Sunarjo, told The Jakarta Post over the weekend that some 200 pharmaceutical companies operating in the country were ready to compete under AFTA and tap a bigger slice of the regional market.
"We have more companies than the other respective ASEAN countries and we have more experience in operating in a big market," he said.
AFTA requires the six original ASEAN member countries -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand -- to eliminate all import duties on their products by 2010. The other four ASEAN countries -- Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam -- will be required to eliminate import duties by 2015.
Anthony said AFTA would offer the Indonesian pharmaceutical industry wider access to the ASEAN market of some 600 million people and annual pharmaceutical sales revenue of about US$6 billion.
Indonesia alone has a market of 220 million people and about $2 billion in annual pharmaceutical sales.
This year, GP Farmasi Indonesia projects a 13 percent increase in medicine sales from last year's $2 billion, of which 5 percent came from exports.
The association's head of organization and regional development, Kai Arief Iman Selomulya, however warned that AFTA also could pose a threat to local companies in view of the tougher competition from pharmaceutical firms in the region.
"For example, Malaysian pharmaceutical companies will be lured by the huge market in Indonesia, a market 10 times bigger than their own," he said.
GP Farmasi plans to organize a series of seminars to encourage the country's drug companies to improve their production quality and meet common standards.
"AFTA requires harmonization, such as the unification of standards in medicine production," Anthony said.
He said such harmonization would help create a business climate in which companies in the region would be encouraged to compete in the same market, not only in terms of aggressive advertising but also in quality. (006)