JEDDAH, 7 November 2006 — A three-day conference and an exhibition about new trends in the Kingdom’s pharmaceutical industry kicked off yesterday at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI). The event has been organized by the Industry Support Department at the JCCI in cooperation with the Saudi Family and Community Medication Society.
Speaking to press yesterday, Mazen Batterjee, deputy chairman of the JCCI, said the Kingdom’s pharmaceutical industry is a strategic one that is supported and encouraged by the government. There are 13 drug factories in the Kingdom, producing 24 percent of medicines used in the country.
Batterjee said, “To shed light on this vital industry and its future in the light of the Kingdom’s accession to the World Trade Organization, the JCCI has welcomed the convening of the conference entitled ‘New Trends in Pharmaceutical Services and the Future of the Industry in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’ in coordination with the Saudi Family and Community Medication Society.”
He added that the JCCI had agreed to provide support to ensure the success of this conference. “The conference aims at exchanging information and benefiting from developments in the pharmaceutical industry and also to clarify the most important challenges and difficulties facing the industry in the Kingdom,” he said.
Batterjee explained that among those difficulties is the non-availability of Saudi pharmacists to work in the industry.
Health Ministry figures show that there are at least 12,000 non-Saudi pharmacists working in the Kingdom and that not more than 250 Saudi pharmacists will be graduating from pharmaceutical colleges in the Kingdom in the next three years.
In his speech Dr. Fahd Al-Tayeb, director general of the Saudi Family and Community Medication Society, said that the conference aims to exchange information and learn about new developments in the medical and pharmaceutical industries.
