Ramallah - Pharmacare, a Ramallah-based Palestinian
pharmaceutical company, shipped 2.4 million capsules of the pain
killer Tramal to Germany on Tuesday, marking the first-ever
Palestinian-made medicine export to the European market.
The shipment, Pharmacare founder and chief executive officer Basem
Khoury said, was the first of medicine from Palestinian areas to be
shipped to a regulated market in Europe after the Palestinian company
received in 2007 the European standards certificate EU GMP.
He made the remarks while speaking at ceremonies on the company's
Ramallah premises, attended by Acting Palestinian Prime Minister
Salam Fayyad and Jurgen Ruettgers, Premier of the German state of
North Rhine-Westphalia and a large crowd of guests.
Khoury noted that Palestinian pharmaceutical companies ship
products to non-regulated markets in Africa and the Middle East, but
Tuesday's shipment was the first time a Palestinian product was
earmarked for a regulated market with high standards.
Although Europe consists of only 15 per cent of the world's
population, its pharmaceutical market accounts for 85 per cent, he
noted, while calling the Pharmacare shipment 'an important and
symbolic event.'
He said that if a Palestinian product has been able to reach the
European market in spite of all the difficulties placed in its way by
the Israeli occupation, 'then we know that tomorrow will be even
better when all these obstacles imposed on us are removed.'
He said Germany has funded the Palestinian economy with 600
million dollars and pledged another 300 million dollars at the
December Paris donors conference.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who visited the
Palestinian areas on Monday, travelled with Fayyad on the same day to
the northern West Bank city of Jenin where he announced German
financial and logistical support for the Palestinian security forces
and industrial projects in the city.
Ruettgers said that 'today is the first step in cooperation'
between Palestinian and German companies and the beginning of
stronger Palestinian-German economic relations.
Pharmacare and the German pharmaceutical company Grunenthal, which
is located in North Rhine-Westphalia, have cooperated since 1999 in
producing several Grunenthal products, including Tramal.
Pharmacare has a 29 per cent stake in the German company and plans
to expand its operations in the European market under the name
Pharmacare Europe.
Khoury said that while exports to the German market and to Europe
in general will reach only one million euros (1.55 million dollars)
this year, he expects exports to increase in the next three years to
30 million euros.
The Palestinian company, established in 1985, is planning to
produce antibiotics, and then medicine for ulcers, specifically for
the European market.
The Palestinian shipment will leave Ramallah stamped 'Made in
Palestine,' but once it reaches Germany it will be re-packaged at the
German pharmaceutical plant and have the German company's logo on it.
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