India Self-Reliance In Medicines, Raw Materials Imports Reduced In 2022

20 May 2022

India is building strong self-reliance on the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals (medicines). Earlier, the Southeast Asian country accounted for a total worth of pharmaceuticals imports, amounting to 2.98 billion for the ending year 2021. Exports in 2021 amounted to $16.2 billion. The Union Ministry of India recently claimed a week ago that India’s dependence on the imports of raw materials for manufacturing medicines has decreased by 25% due to increased domestic production in India of medicines. Take a look at the overview of the Indian pharmaceutical market.

Imports of Raw Materials (2021)

India has imported a number of ingredients from countries such as Italy and the US for quite a few years in order to promote manufacturing in the local production units in their own country. 

The top ingredient imported in India was ‘sodium methoxide’ with an import value of $272 million, followed by ‘chlorogenic acid’ with an import value of $126 million, and ‘sulfanilic acid’ with an import value of $92.2 million, along with others in the list.

Imports of Raw Materials—Comparison

In the shown list of imported ingredients in India above, how much of the imports increased in the year 2022? The below table shows the comparison between the import values of each ingredient for the first quarter of both the years 2021 and 2022.

The total amount of import value for 2021 is $140.71 million, while the total amount of import value for 2022 is about $138.94 million. Evidently, the imports in the year 2022 decreased as compared to the same period considered for 2021. The decline in the imports of ingredients is 1.26% for 2022.

India is encouraged to promote the domestic manufacturing of the medicines and its ingredients without being dependent on the imports from other countries, following the Asian country has learned that in a time of crisis, Atmanirbharta (self-reliance) goes a long way, both for own country and the ones in need.