Manufacturing a domestic product that competes with the importer... A press interview with Dr. Ahmed Habash for Poultry World magazine

2023-08-31 11:56:16

Manufacturing a domestic product that competes with the importer.. We can cover 90% of feed and water additives

The drug market is based on long-term sales, which sometimes negatively affects the development

Unfortunately, we are a urea-producing country that imports it as a feed additive

The domestic market does not keep up with the world market in terms of prices

The conversation was conducted by: Maher Khudairi.

The veterinary medicine market represents a percentage ranging from1510% of the cost of production and there are thousands of companies operating in this sector, whether manufacturing, importing, trading and distribution, and it employs hundreds of thousands of doctors, agricultural engineers, supervisors and other supporting and supportive labor

This sector is negatively affected whenever the poultry industry is hit by a crisis or disaster, and after the biggest problem faced then is the loss of revenue from all its sales, because the sale is carried out in the pharmaceutical sector with a term system, then it may stop production or reduce the number of workers or cancel some of the items in which it works, and there is no doubt that the recent poultry crisis as a result of the unavailability of raw materials has cast a shadow on veterinary medicine

We have chosen one of the young models for you to talk about the impact that the veterinary pharmaceutical industry has faced as a result of the recent crisis, which is the adepco group of companies, so we had this dialogue with him:

The poultry industry has been facing many challenges in the recent period that have had an impact on various related sectors how did it affect the pharmaceutical sector from your point of view

At the beginning, we should commend Poultry World magazine and all its employees, because it is one of the means that gives importance to this vital sector, and defends it with all my capabilities and capabilities by giving a large area to cover everything related to the poultry industry in Egypt, as it is a local industry capable of achieving self-sufficiency for Egypt and having a strong opportunity to export to the Arab and African countries that surround us .

We in Egypt have a lot of experience, especially that the poultry industry is a production-intensive sector and needs huge labor, and it is no less important than other investment activities such as cars, tourism and communications; it is not an industry on its own but it is linked to other industries and has a great influence on them, and the pharmaceutical industry does not represent a small number either, because all companies currently have a large number of marketing and sales men working on more than one product, as well as human cadres in other departments of veterinarians and administrators.

The poultry industry is based all the time on the long-term sale, where payment comes after obtaining the appropriate breeding cycle, because the poultry breeder works with this system, in which the sale gets the cycle at the first stage, and then payment comes to the sellers of feed, medicine and farms, that is, %۹۰ of that industry is based on the term, and some companies also offer a system based on a cash part and a forward part, so the financial flows are going in a certain way on the poultry and the payment may reach two or three months and may exceed that period.

As a result of the long payment periods that occur in the poultry industry, this greatly affects the process of importing raw materials from abroad, which has recently witnessed a significant increase in cost and therefore the local market does not keep pace with the global market in that significant increase, which is happening in corn and soy producers, especially after the breakthrough of the Ukraine crisis, where it is witnessing a decrease in cost abroad while witnessing a rise in the Egyptian market.

The same thing happens in the pharmaceutical industries because Egypt does not produce raw materials in many medicines except for a few materials, and they remain in the port for up to 4 months, which affects the financial aspects of companies, so they begin to reduce labor, and here it is worth noting the difficulty of work and production in the presence of a decrease in raw materials such as lactose because it is one of the irreplaceable raw materials in the poultry pharmaceutical industry.

In addition to the increase in prices of materials and the difficulty of obtaining them, there is also a blur in determining prices, which is determined by who owns them, which is not befitting the Egyptian being in the poultry industry because Egypt is one of the leading countries in this sector, according to reports and studies, therefore, the pharmaceutical industry affects poultry by a percentage ranging from 12 10 to  in production inputs, because the pharmaceutical industry is closely related to the growth that occurs in the poultry industry

This brings an increase to Egypt significantly because we have the ability to keep abreast of developments taking place in the global market, and we also have the ability to export a lot of products to many countries of the world.

 To what extent did the Ukrainian crisis have a lease on the poultry industry and the subsequent crises

As soon as the currency price fell, the export supply increased, which did not happen in Egypt due to lack of coordination with producers.with the crisis that occurred in Ukraine, which was the number one exporter in this field, we could fill this void and be corn and soy, especially after the outbreak of the first poultry feeder crisis in the countries that surround us, but this production was directed abroad while the local market, which was experiencing sufficiency at that time, is rising, especially the African countries suffering from a dollar crisis at that time and witnessing a scarcity in the poultry industry.

This happened to me personally during my trip in Uganda, where I discovered that the price of poultry reaches the equivalent ofنيها pounds, and African countries are a treasure for some countries that inject large investments in this sector, such as India, China, Turkey and Lebanon, as well as some international brands such as KFC, and therefore they are one of the places that make large investments, and this is the philosophy of large entities that they do not place their investments only in places that bring them great returns.

How do you see the role of official authorities in supporting producers and exporters of Medicine

There is poor communication between official authorities and companies, with the exception of some conferences held by the syndicate from time to time, and we do not find tangible results on the ground, so the poultry industry has not received the real attention it deserves so far, and the veterinarian has lost his right among many institutions and bodies, whether the Ministry of agriculture or health, but the poultry industry has been able to promote private, private investments and since a year ۲۰۱۵ we have traveled to many African countries such as Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda and Ghana because we are well aware that the opportunities of the local product will be a strong presence in Africa, we have also been able to study competing companies and the nature of its work and the products it offers .

Since I started my journey in this field, I have been dreaming of making a local product that competes with the importer, and we are able to do this even in light of the many challenges facing the industry at home in terms of finalizing procedures and paperwork for establishing factories and registering raw materials.

There is a saying that is often said that the local product is less efficient and effective than the imported product, what is your response to that

The importer deals primarily with the logic of a merchant who wants to make a profit and impose a good presence of his products, as Egypt entered the manufacturing field late because we were an agricultural country in the first place, as well as many believe that only the imported product has high efficiency in achieving results, we are now in a year 2022 and we started our journey in a year 2007 and during those years we were able to gain a lot of experience through the many conferences we attended in many countries of the world.

It should be noted that the boom that took place in China and Turkey in this field was based mainly on the tradition of making distinctive international products, and we are not content with imitating the materials and specifications of international products, but we add to them from the reality of research and studies, and therefore one step ahead of the European product, and yet we find great interest in the imported product, while the local product has proven its superiority in some sectors, we find that Biohazard is 80% local, and therefore, in a decision in favor of that industry will make it rise very quickly, and some decisions have been made that stipulate that materials from certain countries should not be registered, and thus medicines in Egypt, it only needs to be regulated Just.

Since we entered the industry, we have been planning what should be implemented over the coming years 10 At First we faced some obstacles, but over time we started working on new products with the manufacturing system of others.the antibiotic industry in Egypt is one of the captured industries of steel, and this is true because they are fighting illegal industries that greatly affect poultry production, where the antibiotic is manufactured in non-standard conditions with no bacterial count and the absence of laboratories and accurate research.

What does the industry need from your point of view

The pharmaceutical industry in Egypt needs to organize control processes and select specialists, as is happening in the health and pharmaceutical sector, as well as facilitate the processes of obtaining the necessary land for the establishment of factories in the industrial zone, and this is facing us greatly now in the land that we intend to acquire in the tenth region of Ramadan, and we are trying in every way to make a decision before the end of the year so that production does not but What prevents them from doing so is the large number of labor that will be in the wind because of this decision.

 How did your journey in the field of pharmaceutical manufacturing begin and how did you manage to achieve great successes in a relatively short time

 Since my partner Dr. Ibrahim Shaaban and I started a year 2007 the goal was to make a local product that competes with imported products, this goal has been in our mind since we were at the University and we were able to visit foreign markets and find out the requirements and production conditions, and we were able, thank God, to turn this dream into a concrete reality on the ground in many preparations, but difficulties still persist in light of many challenges, as well as the broad hopes that the company aspires to reach in the coming years to complete the March of success differently, and this success that we reached was not born of chance, but countries in Africa, the Gulf and Europe, to study We studied the competing products, selected the products that suit our conditions, started manufacturing for others, then established our own factory and started registering health products. Years ago, the domestic product was not able to compete with the imported one due to a lot of problems in the market, but now we can cover % of feed and water additives and our goal was to have a special and different format that extends to attention to the quality of external materials and packaging.

 After that, we started studying the raw materials that can reduce import and allow production, and we are trying to launch new products during the coming period, all this came by studying the market and business management, during which we were facing a lot of difficulties to examine products, analyze materials and find an entity inside Egypt capable of carrying out this analysis accurately, and we have become the first local producer to compete with the importer and we hope to export our products to many surrounding countries, whether Arab or African. we hope at the end of the dialogue that the veterinary pharmaceutical industry is one of the most important industries that generate hard currency for the state, as well as saving billions spent on import and support Logistics and contributing to the opening of an export market similar to what other countries such as China and Turkey are doing .