PESHAWAR, July 29: The Pakistan Chemists and Druggists Association has welcomed President Pervez Musharraf’s decision to exempt more drugs from the general sales tax, and requested him to also exempt multivitamins from the levy to enable the patients to buy the drugs prescribed by the doctors.

“We thank Gen Musharraf for his decision to exempt over 200 drugs from the GST. But at the same time, we are concerned about the rising prices of the multivitamins and appeal to the president to include them in the list of life-saving drugs and exempt from the 15 per cent GST,” said Abdul Hadi Khan, Senior Vice-Chairman of the Pakistan Chemists and Druggists Association, Peshawar.

According to him, the prices of multivitamins being listed as decontrolled drugs, had registered about 1,000 per cent increase during the past six years, which needed to be reduced because these are prescribed along with antibiotics.   The government imposed 15 per cent GST on all forms of drugs on March 21, but later exempted 256 life-saving drugs from the tax.

However, chemists and druggists held demonstrations all over the country demanding of the government to withdraw the tax from all sorts of drugs. The government set up a committee two months back comprising ministers of health, finance and industries which recommended inclusion of over 200 drugs to the list of life-saving drugs.

“In this connection, a formal announcement would be made in a couple of days. With the announcement, the number of drugs exempted from the GST would reach to 462,” said an office-bearer of the PCDA.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of PCDA, Peshawar district, Arbab Javed Ahmed, has asked the government to give representation to the chemist bodies on the Price Review Committee set up by the government a week ago under Finance Secretary Moin Afzal to look into the drug pricing mechanism.

The committee, he said, had the representation of the Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association and Pharma Bureau, which represent about 365 local and 27 multinational manufacturers respectively, while there is no representation of the 65,000 chemists of the country.

Mr Arbab said only chemists organizations could present the real drug pricing scenario in the country as the manufacturers, both local and multinational would naturally push for price enhancement.

He said the MNCs were selling their products at much cheaper rates in neighbouring India than they did in Pakistan. He said they should be asked to bring down the prices of their products. These MNCs, he said, were in league with the officials of the health ministry and raised the prices at their own will.