Pharmaceutical imports and exports in Africa by major country 2014

Africa is a new and growing market for international pharmaceutical companies. As of 2014, the top African country for pharmaceutical imports was Algeria with over 2.6 billion U.S. dollars in pharmaceuticals being imported during that year. South Africa, however, was the country with the greatest value of pharmaceutical exports with 380 million U.S. dollars in pharmaceutical exports during that year.

The global pharmaceutical market

Globally the pharmaceutical market has been growing. However, the distribution of pharmaceutical sales and revenues is not equal around the world. Some markets such as the United States and Europe have greater sales of pharmaceutical products. However, recently emerging markets are on the rise and have even surpassed Europe in their total sales of pharmaceutical products.

The emerging pharmaceutical markets

Emerging markets are those that have the potential to generate high revenues but may be associated with great risk. Some current emerging markets are Brazil, India, China, South Africa, Mexico and Indonesia, to name a few. Several African countries are part of these emerging markets. Among African countries Algeria, Egypt and South Africa are among those that have generated the highest pharmaceutical revenue. Among Asian countries, Japan, China and South Korea are the leaders in the amount of pharmaceutical revenues generated in recent years. Among Latin American countries, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela are among the top countries based on their import of prescription drugs.