Fouzi Lekjaa, the Minister Delegate for Budget, revealed that “drug prices are linked to purchasing power and the financial sustainability of insurance and social protection funds,” emphasizing that the reason for setting a specific tariff on medicines in the 2025 Finance Bill is that “medicines produced in Morocco shouldn’t be imported, but their prices must align with global standards.”
Lekjaa stressed that “the goal is to prevent this industry from benefiting from a monopolistic situation where prices don’t meet expectations,” adding that “the second principle is to protect medicines that are partially produced in Morocco and require minimal investment.”
He added, “however, medicines that Morocco won’t be able to produce in the next 10 years, for example, should be allowed to be imported to ensure competition in the supply chain.”
The minister responded to an amendment proposal from the Justice and Development parliamentary group (PJD), which called for a 40% customs duty on all imported medicines that have a locally produced equivalent in sufficient quantities, saying that “the problem today is that many medicines are priced 4 times higher than in many other parts of the world. This is because, under the guise of local production, part of the process is actually based on imports.”
The PJD parliamentary group justified this proposal by stressing the need to “protect the domestic industry, especially since most of the medicines covered by this provision are locally produced. Adopting this measure would threaten national production and pharmaceutical sovereignty by encouraging imports at the expense of local industry.”
The Minister defended his rejection of the proposal, stating that “the principles that guide this are those set out in the article.”
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