Construction of crucial drugs factories in Tanzania which are meant to help Tanzania reduce its expenditure on imported drugs is at advanced stages.
Minister for Health, Community Development, Gender, the Elderly and Children, Ms Ummy Mwalimu confirmed the reports and said the factories projects whose total investment cost stands at US $29m, are 75% complete.
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Crucial drugs factories
The two pharmaceutical factories, namely, Kariuki and Vista, will have a capacity to produce eight types of syrup medicine. Surgeon medications, antibiotics and paracetamol are among other drugs that will be produced by the factories.
According to statistics by the minister for Health, Tanzania imports about 94% of its needs in medicines from Kenya, Uganda, India and other countries – with only 6% being sourced locally.
Ms Mwalimu urged government institutions such as the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) and Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) to collaborate with investors to remove barriers that might affect them in the construction of pharmaceutical industries.
“The country is very much in need of these industries because currently the government depend heavily on Foreign Regulatory Board (FRA) which in return, out of every cent that the government spends on medicine procurement, 90% goes to foreign countries,” said Ms Ummy Mwalimu.
From where the drugs factory will get raw materials? Bhang and Cannabis are raw materials but forbidden to be grown. Licenced farmers should be allowed to grow it large greenhouses. When we’ll monitored, and payment of taxes then things will be ok