Pharmaceuticals Center Planned for Zhejiang

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, November 20, 2001

Pharmaceuticals Center Planned for Zhejiang

Zhejiang Province in east China plans to build a pharmaceuticals materials production base with a total investment of 10 billion yuan (about 1.2 billion U.S. dollars) in five years.

Zhejiang Province in east China plans to build a pharmaceuticals materials production base with a total investment of 10 billion yuan (about 1.2 billion U.S. dollars) in five years.

The purpose of the project is to produce one quarter of the pharmaceutical chemical materials available on the international market and earn five billion U.S. dollars a year from export, an official of the provincial economic and trade commission said Tuesday.

The plan, which has been approved by the State Economic and Trade Commission, has been listed by the central government in the five-year pharmaceuticals industrial development program for 2001-2005.

To fulfill the plan, a number of large enterprises will be set up through strategic regrouping of existing pharmaceutical firms. The large enterprises will each be capable of exporting up to 300 million U.S. dollars-worth of pharmaceutical materials and intermediate, said the official.

The investment for the project will be raised from a number of sources, including funding from the central, provincial and local governments, and private and overseas investors.

The pharmaceutical industry in Zhejiang gained an average annual growth rate of 33.6 percent for the last ten years. Its pharmaceutical exports increased from 2.47 billion U.S. dollars in 1997 to 3.74 billion in 1999.