TIRANA, Sept. 8 – The Albanian government has approved a change to the law on medicines allowing imports of medicines from Balkan countries without necessarily having authorization for trade in one of the European Union countries.
The change to the medicine, which has already been submitted to Parliament for approval, envisaged that medicines produced in Balkan countries can be traded in Albania only when they possess trade authorization and circulate in their home countries, lifting the restriction that these medicines had to be allowed at least in one of the EU countries in order to be imported to Albania.
The approval of the amendment to the 2014 law comes after Kosovo had complained of trade barriers against its medicines.
The Kosovo Chamber of Commerce says Albania has been banning imports of Kosovo pharmaceutical products since 2010 despite significant evidence of the quality and standards met by the local Trepharm company.
“The blockade is officially in force due to a law on procurement of medicinal products in Albania which requires that pharmaceutical products should also be registered at least in another EU country,” said Pranvera Behrama, an official of the Kosovo Medicines Agency.
Safet Gerxhalliu, the head of the Kosovo Chamber of Commerce says some 65 Albanian pharmaceutical products are currently traded in Kosovo while none of the 60 products produced by the local Kosovo company are allowed to be traded in Albania because of “an illegal blockade and unacceptable and banal reasons.”
Albania currently allows trade of domestically produced medicines, medicines traded in EU countries, the U.S., Canada, Turkey, Switzerland, Israel, Japan and Australia as well as medicines with trade authorizations from the European Medicines Agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
