Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Fund and Supply Agency (EPFSA) said it is implementing a support framework that encourages local pharmaceutical producers and attracts foreign companies to invest in the sector.
The agency held yesterday a half-day consultative forum with local pharmaceutical producers and suppliers.
EPFSA Director-General, Meskelie Lera, said on the occasion that the main aim of the meeting is to evaluate the performance of producers and suppliers and identifying the challenges they encountered so far.
The support framework is meant to encourage local investors and create encouraging environment for foreign investors to move into the sector so as to meet the targets set in the GTP by increasing the quantity and quality of medicine produced in the country.
The support framework includes restricted bids for only local producers and subsidy of 25 percent when they compete with foreign suppliers, he stated.
In addition, they are given 30 percent pre-payment for the bid they win and a loan arrangement would be made with Ethiopian Development Bank to cover the remaining 70 percent.
Ethiopia is set to cover 50 percent of its imported pharmaceutical products by local producers during the GTP period, it was indicated.
Meskelie added that the forum is therefore crucial to identify the challenges in the budget year and increase the less than 20 to 25 percent performance.
The Diector-General told the participants that 17 warehouses are being built to solve the problem of storage.
The finalization of the warehouses would increase the medicine storage capacity of the country to 580,000 cubic meters from the current 46,000. This will significantly increase the country’s storage capacity.
[ENA]