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Market |
Healthcare and Medical |
Report Type |
Market Research |
Country |
Belarus |
Published |
22 January 2010 |
Number of Pages |
57 |
Download |
|
Immediate |
|
Publisher |
Business Monitor International |
A rapidly slowing economy and falling exchange rates will see the Belarusian pharmaceutical market post a US dollar contraction for the first time in 2009, with the double-digit exchange rate of previous years not expected to return until 2011. Still, despite our expectation of a 8.5% fall in US dollar market value for the full year and a 3.9% fall in 2010, forecasts of a recovering economy and appreciating ruble underlie our still robust five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.93% in US dollar terms (9.76% in local currency terms) for the period 2009-2014. Forecasting further out, our new 10-year forecast predicts a 9.68% CAGR in US dollar terms.
Any forecasts for Belarus are accompanied by strong caveats. Belarus has seen its economy slow sharply in 2009 and we see the country likely ending the year with negative GDP growth, while anaemic growth of less than 1.0% is forecast for 2010. But its economy – heavily controlled by its autocratic president, Alexander Lukashenko (and more widely, the state) as well as by its close integration with neighbouring Russia is largely unreformed and likely set for a future fall. The country also remains dependent on Lukashenko’s health and policy views. In November, it was widely reported that the president had stated that the A(H1N1) influenza virus was the ‘invention’ of multinational pharmaceutical companies – whom he referred to as ‘gangsters’ – and had sought to play down the severity of the epidemic.
While Belarus has made some recent gestures towards the European Union (EU) and the US, its economy and trade flows remain in favour of Russia and other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. This is underlined by the country’s decision to enter a single trade bloc with Russia and Kazakhstan in January 2010, as part of the new Customs Union. The immediate effect of the new union on multinational drug producers will be minimal, with external pharmaceutical tariffs in fact reportedly slated to fall. Over the longer term, there will be wrangles – for instance, Russia has reportedly sought access to Belarusian government tenders on the same terms as local producers – as Belarus pursues an aggressive import-substitution policy.
As part of this policy – as in Russia and Kazakhstan – the country is hurriedly seeking the construction and establishment of new plants domestically. At least five are on the drawing board – including new plants by state giant Belbiopharm, through its subsidiary TriplePharm, a plant at the recently acquired Dialek complex by highly controversial Russian politician and businessman Vladimir Bryntsalov (owner of Ferein) as well as start-up vitamin and mineral producer Academpharm. Ferein and Belbiopharm are building the country’s largest facility, Vitunipharm, in Vitebsk. At the same time, local producers have not kept up with market growth – while the government put a positive gloss on figures showing sales by domestic drugmakers to be up 4.9% in local currency terms over the first eight months of the year, this rate substantially trails the forecast annual growth rate (11.4%) for the market in rubles. Bridging this gap will require technology transfers from the ‘gangster’ multinationals.
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