Govt urged to ban serum import from foreign countries

KABUL (Pajhwok): Officials of TGL Pharmaceutical, the largest serum production company in capital Kabul, say they can produce serum more than the country’s need and the government should ban its import or increase customs duty to support domestic production.

TGL Pharmaceutical, the largest serum production company in the country, was inaugurated in a week ago in Pul-i-Charkhi area at a cost of 25 million US dollars.

Officials of the company say the opening of this company is a giant leap towards Afghanistan’s self-sufficiency in the pharmaceutical industry and add currently Afghanistan needs about 25 million packets of serum in a year and their production is higher than the country’s need — about 70m packets serum per year

Naseem Jan Ghafoori, deputy director of the company, said they established the plant by investing $25 million and it has the capacity to produce 110,000 packets of different medical serum in 24 hours.

He said about 300 people were currently working in the factory. With activation of all three phases of the factory, all necessary drugs will be produced in the country and job opportunities will be provided to more than 1,000 people.

He explained so far only the first phase of this factory had been activated where only serum was produced and they had the plan to activate the second phase in next six months.

Encouraging other investors to invest in the country, he asked the caretaker government to completely stop the import of serum from foreign countries or raise customs duty on them to support domestic production.

He also asked the government to provide them with more electricity and make the administrative processes easier for industrialists.

Meanwhile, Ministry of Commerce and Industry spokesman Abdul Salam Jawad told Pajhwok Afghan News they supported all domestic investors and had full confidence in the country’s manufacturing factories.

He added whenever the ministry was satisfied that the domestic product could meet the needs of the people, it will ban the import of foreign products.

Meanwhile, workers of the factory assured that the factory’s equipment and products were standard.

Dr. Bakht Alam, production manager of this factory, said they imported raw materials from European countries and their production was of international standards.

Khalid, the owner of this factory, asked other investors to provide work for young people by building such factories in the country.

kk/ma

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