China will focus on developing both traditional Chinese medicine and bio-engineered medicine in the coming five years, hoping to become one of the world's pharmaceutical giants.

The State Economic and Trade Commission (SETC) said that although China still lags behind many developed countries in the pharmaceutical industry, the nation has clear advantages in some aspects, and medicine manufacturing is one of its most promising industries, the People's Daily reported today.

About 200 Chinese academic institutes and 140 manufacturers are researching and developing bio-medicine. More than 20 kinds of high-tech drugs have been churned out with three billion yuan (361 million U.S. dollars) worth of annual output, the newspaper said.

According to statistics released by the SETC, the nationwide pharmaceutical industry in 1999 saw profits of 11.1 billion yuan.

Twenty-four enterprises gained returns of over 100 million yuan each. Tianjin Pharmaceutical Group, 999 Enterprise Group and Tianjin Smith-Kline Beecham (SB) Pharmaceutical Corporation were ranked as the top three.

Meanwhile, the 1999 sales revenue in the pharmaceutical trade reached 252.5 billion yuan, with 22 largest traders selling goods valued at more than one billion yuan, the newspaper said.

Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group, 999 Enterprise Group and China National Pharmaceutical Corporation were the top three in terms of sales revenue.

　　(From China Internet Information Centre)