Hindi-Chini bhai never happened and Sino-India mutual mistrust is the hall mark of the relations between the two neighbouring countries as the two Asian giants compete with each other in almost all realms of modern day world. However, the daggers seem to be out with the Chinese admitting that they were pushing drugs with ‘Made in India’ labels in many countries of Africa.

China has admitted that its pharmaceutical companies were involved in shipping fake drugs labeled ‘Made In India’ to Nigeria. Indian News Agency PT reported today that “the Chinese authorities have accepted this position (that its firms were involved in the case),” an official said.

“The Indian government took up the matter with the Nigerian authorities and on further probe, it was found that the drugs had actually originated in China and not in India,” he added. In June, Nigeria’s drug regulatory authority National Agency for Food and Drug Administration And Control (NAFDAC) had reported about the detention of a large consignment of fake anti-malarial generic pharmaceuticals labeled ‘Made in India’ which were actually produced in China.

Following the incident, India took up the issue with China fearing that this could damage the reputation of the 12-billion-dollar Indian pharmaceutical industry in the global market. Though, China had assured of investigations in the matter, Indian authorities were not given any time frame. India has asked its missions in the region to step up vigil for protecting the nation’s image and market. It may be recalled that NAFDAC had issued a press note last week stating that a large consignment of fake anti-malarial generic pharmaceuticals labelled `Made in India’ were, in fact, found to have been produced in China.

Following this, India had lodged a “strong protest'’ with the Chinese mission and China’s foreign trade ministry, according to commerce ministry officials.

India’s High Commissioner in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, Mahesh Sachdev, it is reported had earlier written to then commerce secretary GSK Pillai, alerting him to the large seizure: “fake foreign-made generics carrying `Made in India’ label can do tremendous harm to our interests as tt not only dents our image and takes our legitimate market share, it also erodes the distinction between generic and fake medicines that we have been campaigning for at WHO and WTO'’.

Indian government officials say that they were flooded with complaints about such fake drugs from China being offloaded as Indian drugs in countries like South Africa, Ghana, Ivory Coast and West Africa where India had a major stake in the drug pie. About 60% of drugs in Nigeria are imported. Between 2001 and 2007, more than 30 Indian and Chinese companies were banned in Nigeria for exporting fake drugs to the country.

Govt officials point out that this was yet another case of the dragon making attempts to dent Indian image on the international platform.