Medical insurance chamber of Commerce: eight suggestions on medicine import

Source: on February 18, 2016, when the overall recovery of the world economy is weak and the risk of domestic economic downturn is increasing, we must accurately monitor the import situation of China's pharmaceutical industry, better promote the positive import promotion strategy, and provide practical basis for relevant departments to study and formulate policies under the new normal Since last year, China's pharmaceutical import environment has continued to be optimized, which has accelerated the development of pharmaceutical import trade and promoted the balanced development of foreign trade Facts and characteristics in 2015, China's import and export of medical and health care products totaled 102.637 billion US dollars, including 46.197 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 7.32%, leading the export growth by 4.62 percentage points Market openness has been gradually improved, and the policy environment has been continuously improved Since China's accession to the WTO, China has gradually eliminated non-tariff measures such as quantity quota, import license, designated company operation, etc through multi-channel optimization of the import conditions of pharmaceutical products, implemented a single tariff and expanded the types of restricted products in processing trade In the measures for the administration of drug import, which has been implemented since 2004, the international practice of recording the import of pharmaceutical products has been used for reference, the provisions of customs clearance procedures have been gradually improved, and the level of trade facilitation and market opening has been gradually improved A series of major decisions, such as the guiding opinions on strengthening import and promoting the balanced development of foreign trade, have been successively issued, which also play a strong role in policy guarantee for China's economic transformation and structural adjustment Strong domestic demand and rapid expansion of trade scale Market demand is the source power to promote the continuous expansion of China's import trade, and also the main reason for China to become one of the countries with the fastest import and the greatest potential of pharmaceutical products in the world In particular, the steady growth of the national economy provides a necessary prerequisite for the development of import trade; the deepening of the new medical reform and the increase of the government's investment in the health sector have objectively increased the burden of public diseases; the aging and the change of disease spectrum have further stimulated the rigid demand for imported medical products in the domestic market At present, China's imported products are mainly high-end medical equipment, pharmaceutical equipment and Western patent medicine, which are highly complementary to domestic industries and reasonably matched, can effectively improve the domestic supply, and is conducive to industrial restructuring and optimization and upgrading Last year, China's import of pharmaceutical products increased by 11.3 times compared with the US $4.08 billion in 2001, with more than 20000 pharmaceutical import enterprises, three times that of 2001 With the acceleration of market diversification, the free trade zone has gradually become a new driving force Over the past decade, China's pharmaceutical import sources have been expanding, from 97 countries and regions in 2001 to 155 at present Europe and North America are the main sources of China's import of pharmaceutical products The top five countries in China's import volume are the United States, Germany, Japan, France and Ireland, accounting for 54.5% of the total import volume, basically maintaining the import advantage of the traditional market China has also actively promoted the free trade zone strategy, and has signed free trade agreements with Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and other trade partners, greatly promoting regional economic integration and in-depth development of pharmaceutical trade The China Australia free trade agreement signed in June last year decided to relax the access to medical and hospital services in the field of health service trade such as medical care and pension, and allow the establishment of wholly foreign-owned pension institutions, which is bound to drive the related import of medical devices and other medical products In June last year, China's import from Australia was only US $59.52 million By September of that year, the import value in a single month had soared to US $90.77 million, an increase of 152% year-on-year The positive effect of FTA was gradually evident The successful operation of Shanghai free trade zone and the successive establishment of Guangdong, Fujian and Tianjin free trade zones provide an important platform for Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises to deepen their import business The decline in import growth is due to the fact that last year, the import volume of China's pharmaceutical products reached US $46.197 billion, a year-on-year increase of only 7.32%, a decrease of 4.45 percentage points compared with 2014 The first reason is that it is affected by internal and external factors of import demand The long-term, arduous and complex nature of the world economic recovery is more prominent The domestic economic growth is slowing down, and it is in the "pain period" of economic structure and industrial upgrading and adjustment, reducing the demand for external markets The latest data shows that both the import price and the import quantity are growing at a low level, which lowers the increase of import amount Second, the advantages of examination and approval of multinational pharmaceutical enterprises have been weakened China has reformed the market access rules of drug examination and approval, changed the original independent pricing mechanism of original research drugs to market pricing mechanism, and the profits of foreign enterprises with original research drugs as their profit focus have declined Third, the local bidding procurement system has been improved In order to eliminate "medicine for medicine", many local governments have launched new bidding systems to reduce the cost of drug procurement, and to promote multinational drug companies to compete more directly with cheap generic drugs in price Under the heavy pressure, many foreign-funded enterprises have withdrawn their bids in some provinces, and their willingness to import has declined significantly Fourth, the import substitution capacity of domestic related industries has been enhanced For example, the trend of domestic API, especially the characteristic API, replacing the import is becoming increasingly obvious In recent years, leading medical equipment enterprises represented by Lianying and Mindray have made continuous innovation and breakthroughs in design concept, quality control, core technology, marketing mode, etc., and some middle and high-end products such as medical imaging and biochemical analysis can fully meet the needs of the domestic market Fifthly, relevant supporting policies have been gradually improved and anti-corruption factors have been taken into consideration For example, making the plan to guide the health and family planning institutions to equip domestic medical equipment, establishing and improving the incentive mechanism for active use of domestic equipment, focusing on promoting the application of domestic medical equipment in the third class A hospitals and other policy measures, further accelerating the application of domestic medical equipment in the domestic market In recent years, a number of foreign enterprises have exposed the "bribery event", which to some extent restricted the business of multinational pharmaceutical enterprises in China as the main force of import Medicine plays an active role in the national import strategy At the same time, there are some outstanding problems in the field of medicine import, including the serious emphasis on foreign products, the blind worship of foreign products; the shortage of foreign resources, the lack of competitiveness of local enterprises; the difficulty of drug registration and certification, the asymmetry of supply and demand information; many problems in trade facilitation, which hinder the development of import; The import channels are mixed, the management order is not standardized; the foreign investment is expanding rapidly, the security of the pharmaceutical industry is not high; there is a lack of systematization from technology introduction to digestion and absorption With the deepening of medical reform and the improvement of consumption level, the scale of China's import of medical products will expand rapidly We should pay attention to the positive role of medical import in the national import strategy 1 Speed up the improvement of product quality, and strive to forge a private brand Relevant departments and enterprises should attach great importance to the quality of medical equipment products, strictly check the personnel training, capital investment, production design, product manufacturing and other links, and speed up the product standards and international standards Relying on product technology, product quality and other internal indicators, we should effectively grasp the market direction, increase independent innovation, cultivate core competitiveness, gradually expand market share with brand influence, change the current situation that high-value medical equipment products are mainly imported and the prejudice of Chinese people against domestic medical equipment products 2 To improve the import promotion system and the level of trade facilitation, the relevant departments should further sort out the import tariff and import conditions of pharmaceutical products, actively improve the import promotion system and improve the import capacity of domestic enterprises Support the cultivation of professional import exhibitions, and form brand import exhibitions with complete industrial chain, strong professionalism and great influence through long-term operation; set up special import promotion funds, focus on supporting import promotion groups, special training and other projects, and help domestic enterprises obtain effective resource channels; In view of some import management measures, we should further simplify and relax them, revise and improve the policies that do not conform to the current import development, improve the overall coordination capacity of import links of customs, commodity inspection, certificate handling and other institutions, and reduce import costs and costs 3 Optimize the sources of imports, broaden the perspective of product selection, promote the diversification of sources of imports, increase the research on pharmaceutical products in Latin America and underdeveloped countries and regions, and increase the import scale from "BRICs countries", central and Eastern Europe and other emerging market countries Central and Eastern European countries have obvious advantages in the field of molecular genetics and biotechnology, and the cost of technology transfer is lower than that of developed countries such as Britain and the United States However, China's pharmaceutical industry has a mature chemical API foundation, and enterprises are in a critical period of product structure upgrading, which requires the introduction of a large number of patented products, core technologies and key equipment For the import of high-tech goods, it is necessary to broaden the perspective of product selection and import from the developed countries with the highest technological level; for some products produced by non-high-tech and developing countries that can replace the developed countries, they can be transferred from the developed countries to the developing countries Focus on the advanced and unique technology and the latest innovation achievements of foreign small and medium-sized enterprises, and serve the domestic market through technology introduction, cooperative research and development, etc 4 It is of great significance to establish a public information platform, strengthen import services and guide the establishment of a public information platform in accordance with the principles of openness and resource sharing, to help enterprises exchange, promote the optimal allocation of social resources and specialized division of labor and cooperation, and gradually form a socialized, specialized and market-oriented public service system and long-term mechanism It is suggested that relevant departments actively support the construction of public information platform, release pharmaceutical production, sales, trade, circulation, supervision and other information through authoritative channels, effectively and continuously carry out information collection, sorting, release and follow-up tracking, avoid interference of commercial interests, and provide professional service guidance for pharmaceutical import 5 Take multiple measures to expand the financing channels of enterprises and take various measures to facilitate the import financing of enterprises: innovate the import credit insurance business, actively provide insurance products and services suitable for the import demand of enterprises, and reduce the import risk of enterprises; Moderately relax the underwriting conditions, further simplify the insurance procedures of enterprises, reduce the premium level, improve the underwriting, limit approval and claim settlement efficiency; increase the effective guarantee limit, vigorously promote the import prepayment credit insurance business, and support enterprises to take credit purchase mode to trade with overseas suppliers 6 Strengthen Import Supervision, standardize the circulation channels of pharmaceutical products, strengthen international exchanges and cooperation, improve the economic and trade cooperation mechanism in multi bilateral high-tech fields, intensify efforts to continue to urge the United States and Europe to relax the export control of civil equipment and high technology to China, and continue to encourage the import of advanced technical equipment and key parts Carry out industry credit evaluation and improve industry self-discipline and credit level We will mobilize all parties to strengthen social supervision over the import and circulation of pharmaceutical products 7 To strengthen the supervision of foreign pharmaceutical M & A and create a favorable industrial environment for a period in the future, relevant departments should actively and steadily promote the attraction of foreign investment in various ways, promote industrial restructuring, transformation and upgrading, accelerate the improvement of the legal system, strengthen the early warning mechanism of industrial damage, maintain the safety of the pharmaceutical industry and create a favorable industrial environment for the expansion of imports Give full play to the role of the legal system with the anti monopoly law as the core, actively absorb industry organizations to participate in the pre-warning, in-process management and post evaluation of large pharmaceutical M & A cases in China, and help relevant departments accurately grasp the trend of foreign investment in the industry and the possible impact of its expansion 8 Improve the service means of industrial organizations and promote the steady growth of foreign trade