China's plan to expand its pharmaceutical industry along the “Health Silk Road” – a trade and investment route created by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – was announced on Monday, with Shanghai Fosun Pharma starting the first phase of new manufacturing. announced and took a step forward. The Ivory Coast factory is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.
Fosun Pharmaceutical's factory is under construction in Ivory Coast's largest city, Abidjan, and is expected to produce around 5 billion antimalarial drugs and antibiotics a year once all three construction phases are complete. The demand for such drugs in Africa is huge, with almost 95 percent of the world's malaria cases originating from the sub-Saharan region.
“President Xi Jinping said at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit last month that through joint investment by the Chinese and African private sectors, the Chinese government will improve Africa's pharmaceutical production and medical device industry, including access to active pharmaceutical ingredients. I promised to encourage the players.” South China Morning Post (SCMP) noticed on monday.
Until now, China tout Since the coronavirus outbreak in 2020, the concept of the “Silk Road of Health” has been proposed to benefit from the high demand for vaccines to fight the disease pandemic, which was the first recorded in the country. and led to gallows humor about the Chinese.
“Silk Road” is legendary trade route Traveling through Asia and North Africa, it flourished for more than 1,500 years until the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) finally closed the trade route to the West in the 15th century.
When Chinese dictator Xi Jinping announced his intention to make a series of major infrastructure investments along the general line of the Silk Road in the early 2010s, he dubbed it the Belt and Road Initiative to evoke ancient trade routes. It was named. The “Health Silk Road” has become the nickname for President Xi's plan to expand China's pharmaceutical industry into developing countries along the paths paved by these infrastructure projects.
The Silk Road of Health was supposed to start with Italy, the only European country participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, but China's coronavirus vaccines unfortunate and then italy withdrew From One Belt One Road. Currently, the most promising future of the Health Silk Road lies in Africa, where China's anti-malarial drugs are far more successful than coronavirus vaccines.
Zambia last week joined the Health Silk Road by signing a contract with China's Jijia International Medical Technology Corporation to build Africa's first cholera vaccine factory. Nigeria is also working with China to build a pharmaceutical factory in the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos, focused on manufacturing HIV drugs.
Nigeria once supplied much of Africa with medicines made by Western giants GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and polio vaccine specialist Sanofi.
GSK and Sanofi announced In August 2023, “operational issues”, especially caused This is due to the Nigerian government's decision to abolish fixed prices for foreign currency transactions in order to slow down the collapse of Nigeria's currency, the Naira.
GSK said that in addition to rising energy and operating costs, the exchange rate was the main reason it was unable to operate its business in Nigeria without incurring significant losses. Both companies have pledged to work with third-party distributors to ensure the flow of medicines in Nigeria, but now China is stepping in to fill the production gap.
David Shin, a China-Africa expert at George Washington University, said: SCMP Overcapacity in China's pharmaceutical industry could be the main driver of growth on the Health Silk Road. Frankly, China will soon be producing more medicines than it really needs. population decline.
“As China's population declines, domestic overcapacity will become a major problem across a variety of industries.Africa is the world's fastest growing continent and is an obvious place for increased pharmaceutical production. ,” said Singh.
Another advantage of the Health Silk Road is that, despite the high costs and production difficulties cited by GSK, Chinese pharmaceutical companies operate on very thin profit margins in China, so they have higher profits in Africa. There is a possibility that it will be raised.
Joseph Wangendo, a senior technical officer at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said on Thursday: was praised China is making medical investments in Africa.
“Over the years, China has consistently demonstrated its commitment to Africa's health security. Especially through the construction of the Africa CDC Headquarters, this is a testament to the strength of Africa-China relations,” Wangendo said at the China High-Level Meeting. ”. -African Development Forum.
Wangendo cited the Mpox outbreak in parts of Africa and the Marburg virus outbreak in Rwanda as examples of challenges that China can help Africa respond to.
“We are very grateful for the technical assistance and resources provided by China and look forward to working fully to strengthen Africa's preparedness and response capabilities,” he said.
Leaders of other African countries at the forum said China has built hospitals in countries such as Ethiopia, donated medical equipment and helped African countries improve their “disease surveillance” capabilities.
