Antibiotic trade between India and China was a space of communication and contestation, involving entangled stakeholders and interests from both countries.
Photo: Colourbox illustration
Over the past 20 years, competition among Chinese and Indian manufacturers of key ingredients used to make antibiotic medicines has intensified, resulting in trade disputes and anti-dumping investigations.
- The market has become concentrated, with the majority of the leading antibiotic ingredient producers being located in China. Many Indian producers of antibiotic ingredients have closed down their manufacturing as they have been unable to compete with Chinese producers, Lise Bjerke says.
She is a PhD student at the Department of Community Medicine and Global Health at the University of Oslo.
India is accusing China of dumping antibiotic ingredients into the Indian market
- Indian producers have been accusing Chinese producers of dumping antibiotic ingredients into the Indian market, selling ingredients at unreasonably low prices, and creating unfair competition, Mingyuan Zhang explains.
She is a postdoctoral fellow at the same department as Bjerke.
Dumping is a term used in international trade, within the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework. It describes a situation where a manufacturer exports a product to another country at a lower-than-normal price, causing price discrimination, unfair competition, and damage to local production.
- Cheap labor and infrastructure in China make the price of antibiotic ingredients lower than the producing cost if they were produced in other countries, making it possible to export ingredients at a very low price, Zhang says.
Antibiotic trade disputes are spaces of debate, communication, and contestation
China and India are major producers of antibiotics today. The world is highly dependent on importing antibiotics and antibiotic ingredients from both countries. China is the main producer of active antibiotic ingredients. India is the leading producer of antibiotics globally, but is highly dependent on Chinese ingredients to produce these medicines.
- In the new study, we unpack the relationships and trade disputes within the antibiotic trade between the two countries, as these relations are essential for the global supply of antibiotics, Bjerke says.
- Analyzing trade disputes between China and India, we found that the disputes provide a space for communication and contestation, Zhang says.
- Stakeholders of conflicting interests from both countries used, or sometimes even manipulated, objective facts about pharmaceutical ingredients, to strengthen arguments on both sides of the disputes, she continues.
Indian and Chinese antibiotic trade interests are complicated and intertwined
- China and India's interests in antibiotic trade were extremely entangled, Zhang says.
- Even though they were trying to separate themselves from each other due to nationalistic and corporate interests, they were dealing with intertwined and connected issues within the antibiotic trade, she continues.
Often there was not a clear division between the countries and their interests. Multiple stakeholders with conflicting interests from both countries were involved throughout the antibiotic supply chains.
- This makes it hard to track the flow and monitor the antibiotics and pharmaceutical ingredients being produced, Zhang explains.
