LAHORE (The News) -- Iranian Minister for Health Kamran Bagheri Lankarani has said Pakistan and Iran having strength and capacities in many areas can initiate joint ventures in pharmaceutical sector.

He was speaking at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Saturday. Iranian Ambassador to Pakistan Mohammad Ebrahim Taherian and LCCI Acting President Yaqoob Tahir Izhar also spoke on the occasion.

Lankarani said Iran had over 40 percent purified pharmaceutical raw materials that provided a huge opportunity to Pakistan to evolve cheaper and efficient solutions by getting these raw materials from Iran instead of any third country. The Iranian minister said both Pakistan and Iran were very strong in the field of herbal medicine with knowledge of 7,000 medicines, while at present both the nations “are producing only 2,500 drugs so there is a huge scope in this particular area.”

These herbal medicines could be exported to Europe as they have only 200 herbal drugs.

He said bio-technology was the future of pharmaceutical industry and as Iran had sufficient knowledge in that area, so it was ready to cooperate with Pakistan.

Speaking on the occasion, LCCI Acting President Yaqoob Tahir Izhar called for concerted and sector-specific efforts to increase the volume of two-way trade between Pakistan and Iran. He said major bottlenecks in the promotion of trade between the two countries were lack of timely information about trade and business opportunities in each other’s country. “The issue can be taken care of through active engagements of the chambers of the two countries, which can act as resource base for information on trade and investment opportunities.”