The Export Development Board and the National Medicines Regulatory Authority have launched a joint programme to scale Sri Lanka’s pharmaceutical export earnings to USD 100 million from a current base of less than USD 6 million, EDB Chairman Mangala Wijesinghe said.
Speaking on Thursday, Wijesinghe said the initiative is being implemented under the Sri Lanka National Export Development Plan (NEDP) and that the lead constraint blocking access to foreign markets has been the cost and complexity of securing quality certifications from importing-country regulators, NewsFirst reported.
Recent meetings with NMRA Chairman Dr. Ananda Wijewickrama discussed routes to obtain those quality certificates for locally manufactured and other pharmaceutical products, Wijesinghe said. The programme aims to lift export income to USD 100 million.
The push lands on a domestic backdrop of mounting medicines-cost pressure. Local retail prices were lifted again this week by the NMRA citing rupee depreciation and follow earlier rounds tied to shortages and price-control wear-down disclosed in early May. It also slots into a broader EDB diversification strategy that Wijesinghe outlined to the ADB last month — a USD 100 million-anchored five-cluster framework targeting pharmaceuticals alongside ICT, manufacturing and agriculture — and the provincial-lab PPP unveiled with NMRA on June 1.
