ISLAMABAD: Pakistan expects Chinese and local companies to sign binding commercial agreements at a health-sector investment conference this week, Health Minister Mustafa Kamal said on Wednesday, describing the event as a potential turning point for investment and technology transfer.
The two-day business-to-business conference, beginning on Thursday in Islamabad, will bring together 180 delegates from 160 Chinese companies and representatives of about 340 Pakistani businesses, according to Kamal.
Unlike a conventional business forum, he said, participating companies had already been engaging with each other for about a month before the event.
“We will sign agreements, not MoUs, God willing,” Kamal told a news conference. “Agreements are binding.”
The conference will focus on six areas of the health care industry, including active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), biotechnology and vaccines, medical devices, generic formulations, injectables, clinical trials and traditional herbal medicines.
Kamal said Pakistan currently manufactures about 85 percent of its medicines but imports about 90 percent of the raw materials needed to produce them.
“The raw material of medicines should be made in Pakistan,” he continued.
The minister said Pakistani officials had worked with their embassy in China to identify sectors with the greatest investment potential and match Chinese companies with Pakistani counterparts before the conference.
He said the government viewed the event as an opportunity to attract investment and technology to Pakistan’s health care sector.
“That is going to be the game changer, a paradigm shift when it comes to a health sector’s investment in Pakistan or technology of transfer,” he added.
