AmCham China president says pharma companies have reported tariff exemptions on China imports
By Andrew Silver and Brenda Goh
SHANGHAI (Reuters) -The Beijing-based American Chamber of Commerce said on Friday that companies in the pharmaceutical sector had reported that they had been able to import drugs to China over the past week with tariff exemptions.
"Anecdotally, companies are reporting that they are able to bring in some items without tariffs," Michael Hart, the chamber's president, said during an online press conference in Beijing.
Asked by Reuters after the event if he could specify which sectors those companies came from, he said: "It's pharmaceutical firms on the exemptions, but I believe it is drug-specific and not a sector-wide exemption."
China imposed 125% tariffs on U.S. products after U.S. President Donald Trump paused hefty import tariffs on dozens of countries but singled out China for even higher levies.
Separately on Friday, some businesses said that China had exempted some U.S. imports from its tariffs and was asking firms to identify the key goods that they needed levy-free, in a sign of Beijing's concern about the economic consequences of the trade war.
The Chinese tariffs have cut into profit forecasts for many big drugmakers including Johnson & Johnson and Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada. Medical equipment supplier and pharma services outlet Thermo Fisher Scientific also said on Wednesday it estimated a $400 million hit this year to its sales in China, which represents about 8% of its business.
"Many chamber members operating in the pharmaceutical sector have production sites in the U.S., which produce for global markets, including China, and/or export APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients) from the U.S. to China, which will be impacted by the tariffs,' Jens Eskelund, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, told Reuters.
Eskelund said that due to tariffs such companies would have a choice between absorbing cost increases themselves or increasing product prices. Those whose products are part of China's National Reimbursement Drug List or bulk buy procurement tenders would effectively need to bear the costs of tariffs themselves.
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