The commerce ministry will also seek PMO's help to relax outbound remittance sent by local pharmaceutical companies for drug registration and promote locally produced drugs in foreign countries.

At an inter-ministerial meeting on problems of local pharmaceutical companies with exporting drugs, the policymakers yesterday also decided to sit with finance ministry to discuss in detail offering cash incentives to local exporters.

The commerce ministry convened the inter-ministerial meeting following an instruction from Prime Minister Khaleda Zia at the inauguration of Asia Pharma Expo 2005 held last month in Dhaka.

Presided over by Commerce Secretary Siddiqur Rahman Chowdhury, the meeting was attended by senior officials of finance, health, industry, foreign affairs and home ministries, Bangladesh Bank, Export Promotion Bureau, National Board of Revenue and Tariff Commission and representatives of pharmaceutical companies.

Meeting sources said commerce ministry will convene another inter-ministerial meeting and soon prepare a set of recommendations to be placed before PMO to solve problems of export-oriented pharmaceutical companies.

As a WTO rule allows companies of least-developed countries including Bangladesh to produce and export essential drugs without maintaining patents, Bangladesh can emerge as a major player in global drug market for it leads other LDCs in basic infrastructure, the meeting was told.

At the meeting, President of Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (Bapi) M Shafiuzzaman said if government allocates a land near Dhaka and provides fund support, an active pharmaceutical ingredient plant can be set up easily reducing dependency on raw materials from foreign sources. Currently over 80 percent raw materials come from foreign countries.

He said commercial wings of foreign missions can play an important role in creating market for local pharmaceutical products. "There are many countries who do not know Bangladesh exports drugs. So, product sample can be displayed in missions. The missions can promote local medicines while local producers can keep missions up-to-date with new developments," Bapi president said.

The government had put a ceiling on the office expenses of local companies operating in foreign countries. The limit was fixed at $ 2,500 per month for a company, which is much below than what a company needs to run an office aboard, the meeting was told.

Other than office rent, which is very high in foreign cities, the companies also need to register their products with drug administrations of that particular country. The cost of registering a drug may go up to $ 22,000. And to tap an optimum level of business, a company needs to register at least 20 to 25 drugs in a single country, the Bapi representatives told the meeting.

The Bapi representatives also called for setting up an independent quality control laboratory in the country for pharmaceutical products.

Bangladesh currently earns around Tk 60 crore a year from medicine exports. Industry people, however, forecast that the export earnings from the sector can hit Tk 10,000 crore a year by 2010 if the government sets up an active pharmaceutical ingredient plant and provides other supports.