Medicinal Plants: Trade and Commerce Opportunities with India

Abstract

About 5,000 plant species have been documented for medicinal value and phyto-chemically studied. Of these, 1,100 are used in different systems of medicine, 600-700 are used in indigenous industries, but only about 150 have been commercially exploited. Besides domestic use, export potential of these plants is huge and given a quality upgadation of such drugs, competitiveness and globalization is ensured. There is, however need for doing scientific work on their pharmacology, phytochemisty and clinical experiments to develop the export potential fully. Important plant species being utilized at present, their world prices, and other potential species have been listed. Shift towards use of herbal drugs worldwide has been noted. There is good scope in developing this sector. Trade and commerce requirements relating to export and marketing in various foreign marketing ego Canada, Hungary, France, UK, USA have been discussed with a view to developing trade in these countries in medicinal products. Various measures, which handicap expansion, have been pointed out. These are: agricultural practices like harvesting and propagation, processing high yield varieties, quality control, marketing, training of personnel, equipment and knowledge about latest advances in technology etc. where efforts need to be focussed.