Kazakhstan. A State Programme, Designed to Attract Investment Into the Sector
The pharmaceutical industry in Kazakhstan satisfies merely 15% of domestic consumption,and mainly low-profit, generic (i.e. non-patented) medicines are produced in the country. According to IHS Global Insight, in 2011, the Republic of Kazakhstan imported drugs valued at $142 billion (704 million euros) which constitutes 86% of domestic consumption. In order to change the unfavourable proportions, back in 2010, by the order of the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, the State Programme for the Development of Pharmaceutical Industry for 2010-2014 was adopted; its aim is to produce 50% domestically by 2014.
The programme provides a number of preferences for those domestic pharmaceutical players who implement GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) and ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) standards, namely:
- procurement tender procedures do not apply to seven-year agreements on the supply of drugs, concluded with ‘SK-Pharmaciya’
- the accelerated procedure of state registration of generic drugs, medical devices and medical equipment, produced locally
- tax incentives.
These benefits apply to foreign manufacturers, who are prepared to localise their production in Kazakhstan under the same conditions as those for domestic producers. This proposal was followed by a response: huge foreign investors joined Kazakhstan’s pharmaceutical market. The state entered in to seven-year contracts with them for the supply of products, under the terms of which, the ‘SK Pharmaciya’ SK was required under the contract to guarantee them a portion of the market to foreign investors after new plants are constructed.
Source: Open Dialog Foundation
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