Baku, Azerbaijan, February 9
By Fakhri Vakilov-Trend:
Chairman of Indian Company Taj Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Ranvir Singh spoke to Trend in an interview about the development of medicine in Uzbekistan, the Indian-Uzbek Free Pharmaceutical Zone and more.
"The primary advantage is location where our manufacturing unit will be established in Indian-Uzbek Free Pharmaceutical Zone. The core advantages are: First of all, location is very feasible for pharmaceuticals manufacturing with local resources present in this region. Moreover, the electricity and gas costs are very low compared to Russia or any other CIS nations where we have active distribution; further, very feasible and almost same labor cost as in India," he said.
Singh pointed out that Andijan is geographically a very strategic location for the Silk Route. During the commissioning period, there is tax free period of 3-5 years as per the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding).
"Late Mr. Salombek Habibullaev, Deputy Chief Minister of Andijan region of Uzbekistan, initiated this project. Deputy chief minister personally visited India and the city of Gujarat to invite the companies and it was unfortunate hear the news about his death. However, despite this unfortunate event, the Uzbek ambassador and all the team members took great effort to explain this project to key companies," he said.
He recalled that this understanding was concluded during the meeting with Honorable Shukhrat Abdurakhmanov, Chief Minister of Uzbek Andijan region. "It was very fortunate that Uzbekistan and India share the same cultural background, food, music and festivals; this is an important part in the lives of Uzbek and Indian people and it is very crucial for India and Uzbek people to work together and succeed."
Singh noted that Taj Pharma is already established and registered in Russia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Tajikistan, with wide range in Indian generics catering to general and critical class of medicines.
"Uzbekistan's local medicine manufacturing industry is still very young and most pharmaceuticals are imported, attracting import duty and taxes, making overall healthcare expensive for common people. Indian-Uzbek Free Pharmaceutical Zone in the Andijan region will provide employment to the local population and Indian and Uzbek members of Taj Pharmaceuticals manufacturing unit will get trained to manufacture medicine, learn to test and obtain technical know-how from Indian specialists."
Our key goal is to keep maximum employment for the Uzbek region, he said.
"With medicine products being manufactured locally, Uzbekistan will get cost benefits. Further, we will target exporting the manufactured medicines to CIS countries," Singh noted.
He went on to add that Taj Pharmaceuticals Group holds 30 years of expertise in supply of medicines to the CIS countries. "Taj Pharmaceuticals holds extensive expertise and technical competence to invest in a foreign country due to outlined benefits, and succeed."