A specialized trade delegation from China’s Hubei Province met with members of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture and exchanged notes on possible cooperation in the fields of pharmaceutical raw materials and manufacturing equipment.
The Chinese delegation expressed readiness to supply Iran with raw materials used in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, TCCIM news outlet reported on Monday.
According to Hesameddin Hallaj, the head of the International Department of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, this is the second delegation from the central Chinese province of Hubei visiting Iran.
The meeting came as South Korea, a major supplier of medicines and their raw materials to Iran, has ceased exports to the Islamic Republic under pressure from US sanctions.
Financial transactions between Seoul and Tehran for shipments of food and medical items have become very difficult after Washington recently requested Seoul share the details of humanitarian exports.
Washington toughened the sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran last month, requiring third countries to provide information on trade with Tehran.
It's realistically impossible to share such trade details with Washington for every single case.
The US decided in April this year to end sanctions waivers for imports of Iranian oil by South Korea and other countries. Since then, South Korean companies have faced difficulties in selling medicine, medical equipment and other humanitarian products to Iran through a bilateral transaction system using the Korean currency, the won.
The Iranian central bank has won-based accounts at Woori Bank and the Industrial Bank of Korea in Seoul for payments of not just oil imports but also humanitarian products not subject to sanctions.
In June, Seoul officials visited Washington to ask for US cooperation for the exports of humanitarian goods to Iran.
The US cruel sanctions against Iran have resulted in denial of access to medicine, medical supplies and foodstuffs, threatening the health of Iranians, and "this is crime against humanity", says Iranian Health Minister Saeed Namaki.
He made the statement at the opening ceremony of the 66th session of World Health Organization’s Regional Committee for Eastern Mediterranean held in Tehran recently.
"Iran calls on WHO to defend Iran against US cruel sanctions that have targeted the health of Iranian people," he was quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.
Despite the US claims that medicine and food are exempt from sanctions for "humanitarian" reasons, the sanctions are preventing lifesaving drugs as well as other essential goods from reaching the country due to complications in payment and the reluctance of foreign firms to deal with Iran lest they run afoul of US wrath.
In 2018, the National Medical Device Directorate reported that the Iranian medical equipment market was worth $2.5 billion, of which 30% belonged to over 1,000 domestic firms.
On a global scale, 56% of 500,000 medical equipment items available in the world market have Iranian counterparts.
In pharmaceuticals, around 70% of Iran’s $4.5 billion market constitute domestic products and, in 2018, 97% of pharmaceuticals consumed in the country were manufactured locally.
In 2018, 67% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients used to produce drugs in Iran were made locally, according to the “Global Innovation Index 2019” report published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization, in partnership with other organizations and institutions.
