PATRICK SCHREIBER
Kcomber Inc., Guangzhou, China

Abstract

China is the worldwide leading supplier of vitamins. Huge pharmaceutical enterprises like Zhejiang NHU and Xiamen Kingdomway ensuring that the ongoing trade war between the USA and China has little impact on exports.  The inspection and quarantine have been removed for Chinese vitamins exporters, reducing export costs and support vitamin export in 2018. However, the upvaluing RMB is causing troubles for Chinese exporters, reducing revenues.

The current China-US trade war worries industry participants about a potential decline in vitamin exports from China, the leading production base for worldwide supply. Some of the major vitamin producers have responded to concerns about the impact of the tariff-announcements. In the meanwhile, policy changes by the government are impacting the trade.

China exports mainly active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), such as precursors and intermediates, to the USA, including APIs of antibiotics, vitamins, and antitumour medicines. In the entire year of 2017, the USA imported USD4 billion worth of APIs from China, becoming China’s second largest API export destination. As a fact, China is a major exporter of vitamin APIs. Nearly 80% of its vitamin production is for export, of which the USA holds the predominant share as a market destination.

In the ongoing trade dispute between the USA and China, the ladder announced recently its decision to impose new tariffs on 128 imports from the United States in response to the new tariffs on steel and aluminium, announced by Donald Trump, that took effect at the end of March 2018. The list of US p ...