Suzhou Industrial Park unveiled the plaque for a special drug port on October 28, which means local biomedicine companies will get more efficient import services at lower cost. The authority believes that the initiative will help boosting the biomed sector and promoting SIP's industrial upgrading.

As a rising sector encouraged by the municipal government, the medicine in Suzhou manages to maintain an average annual growth of 18% and recorded total industrial output of 40 billion yuan at the end of 2013. During the first half in 2014, SIP got 13.99-billion-yuan output from biomedicine and continuously leads in the city. Among all the drug producers in Suzhou, 38% are invested by foreign capital.

China Food and Drug Administration and the General Administration of Customs issued a joint order in October 2013 allowing SIP Port to import drug products. Since the trial operation starting in January this year, SIP authority has issued 62 clearance forms and cleared 190 batches of medicine cargos with total value of 39 million US dollars, serving 8 direct importers including Eisai, Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKline, and Baxter.

Wyeth is one of the importers benefiting from the six-month trial. "It used to take eight to nine days to complete the entire process at Shanghai port," said Fan Xiaohua, senior manager of import and export business. "The time now reduces to three days and this means lower logistic cost, which will eventually affect the drug price and benefit the consumers."

The new policy will also get SIP port more clients from Suzhou and surrounding cities, which "is a good news to local biomed sector," said Yang Wengang, associate consultant at Suzhou office of China Food and Drug Administration.