| By Alex Shaw, Pharmaceutical Manufacturing News |
| Monday, 13 April 2009 |
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Exports of chemical APIs from China tumbled during the first two months of this year, due to weakening demand as a result of the ongoing financial turmoil worldwide. Statistics from the China Chamber of Commerce for Import & Export of Medicines & Health Products show that during January and February 2009 combined, exports of pharmaceutical and health products totaled US$4.3 billion, down 4 per cent from the previous year. Exports of chemical APIs, which accounted for more than 50 per cent of the US$2.5
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billion worth of western drugs and related products exported, slumped 13 per cent.
Since the onset of the global financial crisis, the Chinese government has launched a domestic consumption- driven economic stimulus package. Nevertheless, the country’s |
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pharmaceutical sector, which is not covered by the plan designed to revive ten key areas, is finding it difficult to maintain growth by solely depending on the domestic market. According to Zhou Xiaoming, president of the chamber, China has recently seen a 20 per cent decline in exports overall.
The WTO also predicts collapsing global demand will send the volume of world trade plunging by 9 per cent this year, the largest drop since the Second World War. The gloom and doom enveloping the global trade sector is expected to pose tough challenges to China’s API export business.
In spite of the overall downtrend, some variants of chemical APIs still experienced notable increases in exports. Exports of macrolide APIs soared 24 per cent during the period, followed by chloramphenicol APIs, whose exports grew 21 per cent from a year earlier. |
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According to a recent survey undertaken by the chamber, which interviewed 45 members, 44 per cent of the respondents believed market demand would worsen this year, compared to 29 per cent saying that demand would rebound.
In addition, more than one-third of the surveyed companies (35.6 per cent) expressed a bearish attitude toward the trend of export prices for pharmaceutical and health products, while only 6.7 per cent said prices would rise.
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