National Health Services (NHS) which are often blamed to show apathy towards patient-care by making patients wait even during emergencies was in the spotlight last month while the Royal Surrey County hospital admitted that it bought the NHS drugs cheap to sell at a profit in Europe. The foundation hospital last year continued with its trade in millions of pounds worth of drugs intended for the NHS to Europe, ignoring government warnings.

The weak pound value and sourcing of medicines at low prices are cited as contributing factors for the parallel drug trade. By diverting the medicines away from the UK markets has allowed pharma companies including some of the NHSs to gain a minimum profit of 30 percent extra.

According to the Department of Health’s pharmaceutical services negotiating committee, the new illegal trade has created shortage of 41 medicines including Zyprexa, which is used to treat people with schizophrenia and Actonel, for osteoporosis sufferers. Similarly, other figures show the short supply of these drugs is driven by an exodus of more than £30 million-worth of medicines from the UK every month.

Measures such as random inspections and raising the standards required for wholesaler dealers’ licences are some of the firewalls included to prevent parallel trade. Furthermore, if manufacturers or wholesalers are found to be in breach of legal duties to maintain an adequate supply of medicines they risk prosecution and losing their licences.

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Sharma who was in China to attend the eighth Joint Economic Group dialogue urged the host country to remove tariff and non-tariff barriers on import of Indian rice, fruits and vegetables. He also requested to facilitate landing rights for Indian TV channels in China, and the import of more Indian films.

Sharma informed that New Delhi had doubled its foreign workers visa quota to 40, a decision that likely to help more Chinese firms than any other. However, the number of immigrant workers is still not allowed to exceed more than one percent of the total number of workers employed in any project. While China’s Commerce Minister Chen Demin reciprocated by saying that Indian workers would also get visas on liberal basis.

During the meet, Wen showed keen interest in improving bilateral ties with India and said that only if India and China shared common development platform that they could translate this century into an Asian one. Similarly, Sharma said the time for exclusivity in the international governance structure was over; and both nations would have to be at the front of a new global governance architecture.

After meeting several Chinese leaders, Sharma claimed the meet was very positive and substantive as it covered every component of the bilateral ties. He said that he received assurance from Beijing to encourage the Indian firms in the information technology, pharmaceutical and construction sectors to work with local partners to have ‘more presence and access’ in China.

In 2008–09, China exports to India stood at about $27bn while India’s remained around $11bn. China and India plan to take advantage of its vast consumer base of about 2.5bn people which could be larger than any bloc or region excluded of these two nations.

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