Free Market of 06/02/2008, article by FABRIZIO GIANFRATE p. 10
For medicines, China is close. We don't realize it, but we are treated more and more with medicines that travel the silk road. The country of Maoist equality changed into state turbo-capitalism, absolute sublimation of state holdings, from double-digit GDP and with the successors of the Great Helmsman who prefer Porto Cervo to the Yellow River, produces tons of pharmaceutical raw materials with which Western industries assemble pills and syrups. It's globalization, you know. If bresaola Igt della Valtellina is 100% of Brazilian meat, the active ingredient of the well-known antibiotic comes from Guangdong. No duties, for heaven's sake: those who suffer them barricade themselves. If China, which is among the world's leading importers and owner of US debt, did it by buying Bonds with the dollars of the goods sold to the Yankees themselves, they would be bitter. But the Great Wall must have some cracks if most of the fake drugs come from there. A pernicious market worth 60 billion dollars and doubling every two years. One in ten medicines in the world is counterfeit. Mostly in the Celestial Empire. So much so that recently the director of the Chinese drug agency, discovered pocketing bribes for having authorized the export of lethal counterfeit drugs, was shot (!) Hitting one to educate a hundred, prescribes the Little Red Book. Who knows if among the hundred there will also be directors of agencies from other countries. The New York Times reported that at the recent Milan fair on pharmaceutical raw materials, one of the main ones in the world, more than 500 Chinese companies exhibited, including several already under investigation for counterfeiting. Concerned, Italian producers, always at the top in terms of quality, are working hard to activate the EU to prescribe strict rules on non-EU imports. With inspections and certifications. And heavy fines. Otherwise, Sir Thomas Gresham's law wins. He says if systems are weak the bad money drives out the good. Our producers. fabrizio.gianfrate@unife.it
Free Market of 06/02/2008, article by FABRIZIO GIANFRATE p. 10
PHOTO: Zhen Xiaoyu the director of the Chinese drug agency, discovered pocketing bribes for having authorized the export of lethal counterfeit drugs, was shot
