Papon said this while speaking as chief guest at Gozaria (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient) Park in the afternoon.

Earlier, he laid the foundation stone of Central Effluent Plant (CEP) of API pharmaceutical park.

“The government always tried to keep the medicine price stable but it was not possible for the government all the time to keep the price stable due to price hike of raw materials”, said Nazmul Hasan Papon who is also the President of BCB.

The price of 95 percent medicine was stable, he said adding that “we are trying to establish API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient) Industry for a long time”.

Nazmul Hasan Papon mentioned that Bangladesh manufactures 98 percent medicine locally but imports 95 percent raw material for medicine, in this regard the country is lagging behind but it was not a headache for the country as importing raw materials from abroad was profitable.

Papon said, some days ago 2,500 API was closed on the issue of protecting environment and for that price of raw materials went high which was 120-125 dollars, rose to 300 dollars.

It is natural that price would rise if demand rises. So our API should go into production immediately, he added.

“We are not being able to manufacture patented medicine . We are to remain patent-free till 2032. But we can remain patent-free till 2027 with a three-year extension. However, there may not be any extension. In that respect, we will be able to manufacture patented medicine in 2024. Twenty seven companies will manufacture raw materials of medicine but I will say that there is no benefit of manufacturing paracetamol. I will ask the manufacturers to manufacture those medicine which are of value,” said Papon.

He further said that many countries who manufacture API and they themselves consume 60 percent and if we want to export, we can do.

 “The government and the BSCIC extended support to establish API and attaching importance to environment we set up ETP,” he pointed out.