News

Index to boost cultivation and trade in TCM herbs

By Zhuan Ti (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-04-21 10:00

Chengdu Hehuachi Chinese Herbal Medicine Market.

The Hehuachi Chinese Herbal Medicine Market in the Chengdu International Commerce and Trade Center, reportedly the biggest of its kind in China, will collect up-to-date data.

Publication of the index in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, is due to the region's booming production of herbal medicines, according to officials.

Sichuan is the country's biggest province in cultivation of herbs used in traditional medicine and production of more than 5,000 kinds of traditional medicine. Seventy percent of them are traded in Chengdu.

The local Party committee and government authorities are determined to further develop the industry into a pillar of the Chengdu economy.

In 2009, 29,000 hectares of herbs used in medicine were planted, a figure projected to grow to 33,000 hectares by 2017, when a 100,000 tons of herbal medicine is expected to be produced annually.

Chengdu's Hehuachi market is now one of the top three herbal medicine trading centers in China.

Authorities in Jinniu district of Chengdu began plans for the herbal medicine index in 2010.

(China Daily 04/21/2011 page15)