CHINA has launched a quality improvement campaign in order to popularize traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in other countries. The central government is drafting guidelines _ the Good Agricultural Practice _ to standardize production of herbs. The campaign aims at rooting out inferior products and bringing TCM medicines up to international standards, said Ren Dequan, deputy director of the State Drug Administration at a symposium held in Beijing. China has more than 12,000 varieties of plants used for medicinal purposes. There are more than 600 production bases of TCM herbs in China with an annual output of 250 million kilograms. The country now produces more than 60,000 kinds of TCM end products. However, Chinese exports in the field account for only 3 to 5 per cent of the world herbal medicine market which stands at US$16 billion a year. The remainder of the market is shared by Japan, India, Thailand and the Republic of Korea. Up to now, around 50 varieties of TCM products are sold in the United States, but they are all imported as food and nutrition supplements. Only two products manufactured in Tianjin and Shanghai have been formally registered by the US Food and Drug Administration for clinical testing, said Margaret Wong, head of the China Culture Foundation in the US. Cultural differences and the lack of standards are major obstacles for the entry of TCM medicines on the US market, she said. Three enterprises, China National Corporation of Traditional & Herbal Medicine, the Centre International Group Ltd and the Modern Traditional Herbs Company, jointly advocated a marketing brand strategy at the meeting calling upon manufacturers to produce high-quality herbal medicines. Ren stressed that the traditional Chinese medicine sector has developed slowly due to a relatively low level of scientific research and industrialization. He hopes authorities, scientists and enterprises will combine their expertise to spread TCM culture and technology around the world. Zou Jianqiang, an official with the Ministry of Science and Technology, said his ministry will start a project to modernize the traditional Chinese medicine sector. Major objectives of the project include selecting some medicines for scientific research for future entry into developed countries, setting up a clinical experimental base for traditional medicine and a number of herb planting and medicine production bases