Country’s pharma to grow more than double in five years

The pharmaceutical production, is steadily taking shape in Azerbaijan, will increase by 58.4 times over the next five years.

The concept of social and economic development of the country in 2018 and the next three years says that the pharmaceutical production volumes will reach 1.5 million manats ($882,000) in 2017 and 1.9 million manats ($1.1 million) in 2018.

At present, pharmaceutics is almost undeveloped in Azerbaijan, most of the medicines and other pharmaceutical products are imported from abroad. A number of low-profile companies such as Azerjod LLC operate in the country, but the production of pills, antibiotics and other medicines in the country has not yet been established.

In late 2015, the government announced that Azerbaijan will create its own enterprises that will manufacture medicines to cease dependence on imports. Today, the local market of medicines is heavily dependent on imports.

To this end, the Pirallahi Industrial Park is established by the presidential order, which currently sees the construction of three pharmaceutical plants.

The first plant is a joint venture with a group of companies R-Pharm (Russian Federation), Vita-A LLC (Azerbaijan) and Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC). The foundation of the Hayat Farm was laid in November 2016.

The total preliminary investment in the project exceeds $70 million. The plant should be producing finished products by the end of 2019.

The joint pharmaceutical plant between Iranian company Tamin Pharmaceutical Investment Company (TPIC) and Azerbaijan’s Azersun Holding, Caspian Pharmed became the second resident of the plant. The foundation of the plant was held in January 2017.

The project cost is more than $20 million. The joint plant is to be operational in summer 2018 and in the first stage it will produce 84 medicines.

The Azerbaijani company Diamed Co, founded in April 2017, is the third resident of Azerbaijan’s Pirallahi Industrial Park.

The plant, covering an area of one hectare, will produce 55-58 million syringes annually, based on advanced European, Japanese and Korean technologies.

Moreover, Belarusian, South Korean and Japanese companies are also interested in constructing pharmaceutical plants in Azerbaijan.

After commissioning of those pharmaceutical plants in Azerbaijan, the pharmaceutical production is expected to soar. Thus, the pharmaceutical production volumes must reach 69.5 million manats ($40.88 million) in 2019, 77.6 million manats ($45.64 million) in 2020 and 87.6 million manats ($51.52 million) in 2021.

Chairman of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan Elman Rustamov noted that the newly opened Ziraat Bank will play an important role in transition of Azerbaijan to new economic model.

Rustamov, speaking about the relations between the two countries during the opening ceremony of the new head office of Ziraat Bank in Baku on October 31, reminded that Turkey has always been close to Azerbaijan, including the most difficult periods for the country.

Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci, in turn, stressed that Ziraat Bank Finance Group will take a very important place in the economic relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Turkish entrepreneurs could receive a loan from their own bank, and this is very important, according to Zeybekci. Touching upon customs duty the minister mentioned that Turkey hopes to introduce a zero rate of customs duty with Azerbaijan in 2018 for the supply of goods. Trade turnover between the countries amounted to $1.96 billion in JanuarySeptember, more than $1 billion of which falls on exports to this country.

He explained that this is stipulated by the agreement on preferential trade, which the countries plan to sign.

Last week Turkey freed goods imported from the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic from customs duties. So goods produced annually in Nakhchivan worth $100 million will be imported to Turkey without paying import duties, in accordance with the decision of the Turkish government.

Ziraat Bank CEO Huseyin Aydin, for his part, stressed that Ziraat Bank will contribute to the development of relations between two brotherly countries – Turkey and Azerbaijan.

He noted that Ziraat Bank came to Azerbaijan to help the development of the country’s financial sector.

“With the growing share of Ziraat Bank in the local market, we want to contribute to the development of relations between the two countries,” Aydin said.

He pointed out that Ziraat Bank Azerbaijan is a very important part of the Ziraat Finance Group.

A subsidiary of Turkey’s Ziraat Bank has been operating in Azerbaijan since 2015. The bank’s shareholders are: Ziraat Bank (99.98 percent), Ziraat Insurance (0.01 percent) and Ziraat Securities (0.01 percent). Currently, the bank has one branch and head office in Baku.

Operating since 1863, the state Ziraat Bank is the largest bank in Turkey. Outside of Turkey, the bank’s subsidiaries operate in Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Ziraat Bank also has representative offices in Great Britain, the U.S., Bulgaria, Georgia, Iraq, Northern Cyprus, Greece, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Ziraat Bank has been present on the Azerbaijani banking market since 1995 as one of the co-founders of Azer Turk Bank OJSC, where currently the Turkish bank owns 12.37 percent.