Azernews.Az

By Nigar Abbasova

A groundbreaking ceremony for Azerbaijan-Iran joint pharmaceutical plant will be held on January 16, Trend reported.

Iranian Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare Ali Rabiei is expected to visit Azerbaijan in connection with the ceremony.

Over $30 million will be invested in the construction of the joint venture. In April 2016, Iran's Darou Pakhsh Holding Company, the largest pharmaceutical company of Iran inked a memorandum of understanding with the Azerbaijan Investment Company and Azersun Holding in Baku as part of this project.

The plant, to be located in Pirallahi Industrial Park, is planned to be commissioned within two years and produce dozens of essential drugs for the treatment of heart diseases, contagious diseases, non-communicable diseases, as well as various types of antibiotics and painkillers.

The necessary medicines will be imported from Iran to Azerbaijan within the first stage, while Iran will provide all necessary technology for the production of drugs in the second stage of the project, production of medicines will be launched at the third stage.

Azerbaijan sees the pharmaceutical manufacturing as one of the major directions to diversify the non-oil sector of the economy

. In late 2015, the government announced that Azerbaijan will create own enterprises that will manufacture medicines to cease dependence on import and develop pharmaceutical industry of the country.

Taking into account the profitability of pharmaceutical sector, the government is keen to cooperate with foreign companies in this direction.

In November 2016 construction of the first joint plant has already been launched. The Russian private hi-tech pharmaceutical company R-Pharm, Azerbaijan Investment Company and Vita-A LLC (Azerbaijan) signed a deal on the creation of Hayat Pharm Joint Venture on November 2 in Baku.

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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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