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Upgraded Drugstores Ready for Challenge
About 110 local pharmacies were approved as "standardized drugstores" by the city's drug administration, which urged the rest to upgrade their management to better compete against foreign companies.
The newly improved drugstores are better managed and can provide convenient and high quality medical services, officials said.
Every standardized drugstore must have at least two certified pharmacists or druggists to help customers buy the right drugs and use them correctly. They say they will not provide counterfeit medicine.
"Upgrading the drugstores is not only a requirement, but also a big step towards reforming the drug sales market," said Wang Longxin, director of the administration.
With more people going to pharmacies in the wake of the city's all-around medical insurance reform, the drug retail industry has increased its revenues to an annual rate of 30 per cent.
The challenge will be maintaining those revenues when foreign competitors enter the mix after China becomes a member of the World Trade Organization.
"It's time for local drug retailing enterprises to improve their management and get the international certification of GSP��good supply practice��, " Wang said.
Local pharmacists have followed the issue closely, believing it will improve their competition in the long term.
"Nine of our company's 43 pharmacies have been approved as standardized ones," said You Jianmin, general manager of Shanghai Huifeng Pharmaceutical & Medical Materials Ltd. "And others are striving for the certificates."
Since March, the administration has set new standards for drugstores. The first 94 standardized drugstores were approved in May. And the Shanghai Pharmaceutical Trade Association has trained 4,500 pharmacy employers with GSP and professional knowledge.
All 1,400 local drugstores should upgrade their management and operations by the end of the year 2002, according to the administration's plan.
Drugstores failing to meet that deadline will be closed or their business licences will be withdrawn.
Sources: China Daily
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