Illustrative image (Photo: VNA) Tokyo (VNA) – There remains large room for Vietnamto promote the export of medicinal herbs to Japan, especially when many Japanese pharmaceuticalcompanies are planning to import these products from the Southeast Asian country, according to theVietnam Trade Office in Japan.
Data from Japan Customs, Vietnam raked in 8.6 million USD from exporting medicinalherbs to Japan in 2021.
TheVietnam Trade Office said that Japan has imported a lot of medicinal herbs fromVietnam. However, Vietnamese medicinal herbs account for a small sharein the Japanese market, only 1.1 percent of the East Asian country'stotal import turnover of medicinal herbs.
According to Vietnam Trade Counsellor in JapanTa Duc Minh, a number of Japanese pharmaceutical companies are interested in andhighly valued Vietnamese medicinal herbs.
Sharing Minh’s opinion, Nguyen Van Giap, Director of Hasu No Hana JSC, theexclusive distributor of many Japanese pharmaceutical companies, said that thedemand for importing raw medicinal materials from the Japanese market is huge.
China holds a large market share in most ofthe medicinal products that Vietnam are exporting to Japan.
However,Makoto Tamura, Director of Tochigi Factory of JPS Pharmaceutical Company, saidhis company plans to expand to its international projects so besides China, thefirm intends to import medicinal materials from othercountries, including Vietnam.
In order to boost the export of medicinal herbsto Japan, medicinal herb manufacturers and exporters of Vietnam need to payspecial attention to planning planting areas, tending and harvesting medicinalherbs, and processing and post-harvest storage in order to meet Japan's strictregulations on food safety and hygiene, Minh said.
To fully tap opportunities in the Japanese market, Minh said that Vietnamneeds to develop production chains associated with processing instead of justraw processing with low efficiency, especially focusing on attracting domesticand foreign investment into the sector towards developing large-scalepharmaceutical production and processing centres, he added.
Experts also recommended pharmaceutical material producersand exporters of Vietnam to pay heed to product traceability.
Taruma said his firm attac♛hes great importance to the traceability and understanding of the production of medicinal herbs by farmers to make sure that the 🅺quality of the raw materials for medicine production is good./.
