A pharmaceutical manufacturing company has officially started production after being established by a conglomerate of 70 investors, at a cost of $50 million, in the southern province of Kandahar.
This comes amid an ongoing problem of low-grade medication being imported into the country.
The pharmaceutical factory, Snow Pharma, in Kandahar’s Aino Mena Township, took six years to complete and will produce tablets, capsules and syrups.
Company officials said medicine manufactured at the plant will meet World Health Organization (WHO) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) criteria. Officials said the factory will produce five million tablets, 2.2 million capsules and 100,000 bottles of syrup per day.
“We have a very high standard of production here and we have provided employment to many people, 90 percent of whom are Afghans. This is a good thing,” said Muhammad Saeed Siddique, the head of Snow Pharma.
At least 100 people are employed by the company.
“I have a job in the field of pharmacy. Most of the workers in this factory are Afghans and this business is progressing,” said Muhammad Basir, an employee of the company.
Afghanistan has imported mostly all of its medicines from Pakistan, Iran, India, China and some other Asian and European countries, over the years. This has proved costly to the end user. Afghans have also for many years complained about the poor quality of medicines brought into the country.
