India’s med-tech industry could export five times in next 6 years: CII
New Delhi| Exports of India’s medical technology industry could increase five-fold to $20 billion by 2030, up from $4 billion at present. However, this requires government incentives. This information was given by industry body CII.
Himanshu Baid, Chairman, National Medical Technology Forum at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), said the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for the medical technology sector is currently available for select medical devices, which will extend to all products, as well There is a need to provide export incentives to manufacturers to ‘reimburse hidden costs’.
He added, “Today we are importing about 60 to 70 percent of the medical equipment needed in the country”. Whereas, our manufacturing is still very low because only about 30 percent of the medical equipment needed is manufactured in the country. Our imports far exceed our exports. Our imports are about $8 billion and our exports are close to $4 billion”
Baid further said that by taking advantage of China Plus One strategy, we can easily expand this industry rapidly.
He further said that by 2030, on one hand, the country’s exports will increase. At the same time, imports could fall from $8 billion to $3 to $4 billion.
According to Baid, the industry needs some reforms for ease of doing business, including complexity of rules at the time of quality control orders, which affects the country’s exports and manufacturing.
Baid stressed that close to 3,000 products are regulated by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) in India. We need a scheme like PLI for the entire sector. PLI scheme should not be limited to just a few products. The government should encourage every manufacturing in the country to grow in global markets.
He added that the current PLI scheme for the medical equipment industry only covers 28 companies. It has a budget of Rs 3,400 crore and only 10 to 20 per cent of the funds have been used.
Baid said India’s export infrastructure needs to be improved. We can’t wait two to three weeks to ship our containers out of the country, whereas in China, it probably takes two or three days to ship the product out of the ship.
