Wang Zili, manager of the Tibet Gadol Development Co., was a busy figure at the International Symposium on Tibetan Medicine, which closed here today.

The first international symposium held in the hometown of Tibetan medicine provided him with a golden opportunity to seek partners for the development of new medicines.

Like him, business people involved in Tibetan medicine production and development from Tibet and other areas of China, such as Qinghai, Yunnan and Gansu provinces, brought to the symposium some 100 of their products to look for partners.

Wang said that he signed letters of intent at the meeting with a number of potential partners. A sales agency based in Beijing said that it was interested in representing his company in promoting Gadol products in Beijing.

Wang said that by attending the symposium he has broadened his insight into the industry. The development of traditional Tibetan medicine must go along with ecological protection, as Tibetan medicine is mainly produced from natural herbs.

For example, gadol or rhodiola root is a popular Tibetan herbal medicine. Tibet has a gadol reserve of some two million tons.

"But we can not excessively exploit wild herbs. The company has planned to build a gadol plantation of some 66 ha to sustain the use of the medicine," Wang said.

Baima Gyaco, manager of a Tibetan medicine company from Nagqu Prefecture in Tibet, got inspired by the knowledge from the symposium that an American company had opened a website featuring Tibetan medicine and intends to use E-commerce to explore the American market for Tibetan medicine.

"My company mainly depends on intermediary agencies to explore overseas markets, which has proved ineffective. We now plan to learn to use E-commerce to promote 13 categories of our medicinal products overseas," he said.

Participants in the symposium foresee a broad international market for Tibetan medicine. However, they pointed out that there is still a long way to go to direct the mass-produced medicine to the international market.

One of the problems is that most Tibetan medicine producers have not properly prepared themselves for international competition. The terms of "capital restructuring and share-holding " are still new to the locals.

Experts also suggest that more high technology be introduced into Tibetan medicine production in order to better adapt the traditional industry to the international market.

　　(Xinhua News Agency)