UK Pharmaceutical Export to the
GCC and Africa: Trade-Flow Data 2026
This reference page sets out the real, cited value of UK pharmaceutical exports to the GCC and African markets that hospital, Ministry of Health, NGO and distributor buyers most often source from. The figures below are UK exports of Harmonised System commodity code 30, pharmaceutical products, for the 2024 calendar year, the latest full year available at publication. They are drawn directly from the UN Comtrade database, with the United Kingdom set as the reporting country and Export as the trade flow. Use this page to size the UK-origin supply that already flows to each market, and to ground procurement and registration planning in published national trade statistics rather than estimates.
In 2024, UK exports of pharmaceutical products (HS code 30) to the twelve GCC and African markets listed on this page totalled approximately 1.53 billion US dollars, with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Turkey accounting for the three largest flows. This is the combined value of the twelve markets shown, calculated by summing the individual UN Comtrade figures in the table below.
Destination Market, 2024.
Each figure is the UN Comtrade reported value of UK exports of HS commodity code 30 (pharmaceutical products) to that partner country for the 2024 calendar year, in current US dollars. Markets are ranked by export value, largest first. Percentage share is each market's portion of the twelve-market total shown here, not of total UK pharmaceutical exports worldwide.
| # | Destination market | UK exports, HS 30, 2024 (USD) | Share of 12 shown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United Arab EmiratesGCC | $542,221,445 | 35.5% |
| 2 | Saudi ArabiaGCC | $366,220,281 | 24.0% |
| 3 | TurkeyLevant region | $286,171,636 | 18.7% |
| 4 | EgyptAfrica | $162,683,374 | 10.6% |
| 5 | KuwaitGCC | $39,319,022 | 2.6% |
| 6 | QatarGCC | $34,523,756 | 2.3% |
| 7 | GhanaAfrica | $22,386,081 | 1.5% |
| 8 | JordanLevant region | $20,823,982 | 1.4% |
| 9 | OmanGCC | $17,963,628 | 1.2% |
| 10 | NigeriaAfrica | $15,664,260 | 1.0% |
| 11 | KenyaAfrica | $11,014,896 | 0.7% |
| 12 | BahrainGCC | $9,214,669 | 0.6% |
| Total, twelve markets shown | $1,528,207,029 | 100% |
Figures are rounded to the nearest US dollar for display. HS commodity code 30 is a national-level aggregate covering all categories of pharmaceutical products. It does not represent the product range of any single company. The country links lead to Euro Biom market pages for each destination.
for Procurement.
The GCC dominates UK-origin pharmaceutical supply to this group of markets. The six Gulf Cooperation Council states in the table, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, together received roughly 1.01 billion US dollars of UK pharmaceutical exports in 2024, about 66 per cent of the twelve-market total shown. The United Arab Emirates alone, at 542 million US dollars, was the single largest destination, ahead of Saudi Arabia at 366 million. For a procurement team, this confirms that established UK-to-Gulf supply corridors already move pharmaceutical product at scale, which tends to mean mature logistics routes, familiar documentation expectations and a deep base of UK-licensed product available to draw on.
Turkey and Egypt are large flows that sit outside the Gulf. Turkey received 286 million US dollars and Egypt 163 million US dollars of UK pharmaceutical exports in 2024, making them the third and fourth largest destinations in this group and larger than every individual Gulf market except Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The scale of these two flows reflects sizeable domestic healthcare systems and significant import demand. For buyers in these markets, the headline figures indicate that UK-origin pharmaceutical product is already a meaningful part of the supply mix rather than a niche route.
The sub-Saharan African markets are smaller by value but strategically important. Ghana at 22 million, Nigeria at 16 million and Kenya at 11 million US dollars are modest next to the Gulf, yet each represents a real, recurring flow of UK pharmaceutical product into hospital and institutional supply chains. Lower headline values often reflect tighter national health budgets and a heavier reliance on tenders, donor-funded programmes and NGO procurement, where verified UK-licensed supply and Good Distribution Practice compliance carry particular weight. For these markets, the value of the data is less about size and more about confirming that a dependable UK supply route exists.
A caution on what HS 30 measures. These are aggregate national trade flows for an entire commodity class, not the catalogue of any one supplier. HS code 30 bundles together every category of pharmaceutical product at the national level. Euro Biom is a UK MHRA WDA-licensed wholesale exporter that supplies UK-licensed, MHRA-authorised finished medicines only, and is not a manufacturer. The figures on this page describe the market that UK exporters collectively serve. They should be read as context for the scale and direction of UK-origin pharmaceutical supply, not as a statement of any single company's product range.
If you reference these figures in a report, article, tender document or briefing, please cite both UN Comtrade as the underlying data source and this page as the compilation. A suggested citation line is below.
Suggested citation
The underlying figures are public data from UN Comtrade and remain attributable to the United Nations Statistics Division. This page is a compilation and presentation of those figures for the GCC and African markets relevant to UK pharmaceutical export. When quoting an individual country figure, please state the data year (2024) and note that HS 30 is a national-level aggregate of all pharmaceutical products.
Was Compiled.
Every figure on this page was retrieved directly from the source listed below. No value was estimated, modelled or interpolated. Where a country's figure could not be retrieved, that country was omitted rather than approximated.
- Primary source: UN Comtrade
All twelve country figures are UK (reporter) exports of HS commodity code 30 (pharmaceutical products) for the 2024 calendar year, flow Export, in current US dollars, retrieved from the UN Comtrade database via its public data service in June 2026. Each value is the aggregate annual figure (all modes of transport and customs procedures combined) for the United Kingdom to that single partner country. 2024 is the latest full calendar year available at the time of access.
https://comtrade.un.org/ - Data query parameters
Reporter: United Kingdom (UN M49 code 826). Trade flow: Export. Commodity: HS code 30 (pharmaceutical products), Harmonised System classification. Period: 2024, annual. Partner countries by UN M49 code: United Arab Emirates (784), Saudi Arabia (682), Turkey (792), Egypt (818), Kuwait (414), Qatar (634), Ghana (288), Jordan (400), Oman (512), Nigeria (566), Kenya (404), Bahrain (048). The twelve-market total and each market's percentage share were calculated by Euro Biom by summing the retrieved UN Comtrade values; they are arithmetic derivations of the source figures, not separate estimates.
https://comtradeplus.un.org/ - Classification reference
HS commodity code 30 covers pharmaceutical products under the World Customs Organization Harmonised System. It is a broad national-level category and includes all pharmaceutical product types reported under that chapter. The classification reference is published by UN Comtrade and the World Customs Organization.
https://unstats.un.org/unsd/classifications/Econ/HS
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