China is accelerating its pace at exploring its abundant ethnic medical resources which are believed to have huge market potential.
The State Administration for Traditional Chinese Medicine and the State Ethnic Affairs Commission on Tuesday announced their joint plan to promote 30 to 40 kinds of appraised ethnic therapies in the next three years, along with the industrialization of relevant medicine products.
The pair last December required all local authorities to launch a massive collection of ethnic remedies.
More than 200 outstanding ethnic remedies have been reported so far and are now under appraisal by experts.
The country's first ethnic medicine exposition will also be held from June 25 to 27 by the two departments to demonstrate and promote unique remedies of minorities.
The central government has also allocated a special fund for the collection and backup of written materials of ethnic medicine, according to the drug administration.
Xu Zhiren, an official with the medical policy department in the administration, said ethnic remedies, as an important part of traditional Chinese medical science, can also bring business opportunities to minorities, as well as improve local medical services.
According to the Beijing Tibetan Medicine Hospital, more than 30 pharmaceutical businesses in the country's western regions produced around 500 million yuan (US$60 million) in traditional Tibetan medicine products last year and exported them to more than 20 countries and regions around the world.
Southwest China's Guizhou Province also boasts a remarkable ethnic pharmaceutical industry, especially in Miao medicine, with an annual production value of 2.5 billion yuan (US$302 million).
Xu said the administration encourages comprehensive academic study of ethnic therapies, instead of producing certain herbs only, in order to standardize the ethnic medicine industry.
The administration has, along with local authorities, established 135 ethnic medical research institutions around the country, mainly in the country's western regions where 80 percent of China's minorities live.
China has 55 minority ethnic groups, of which the Tibetan, Mongolian and Uygur minorities have developed a complete set of medical theories, according to the administration.
(China Daily June 19, 2002)
