SHANGHAI, August 25, AsiaPort -- Bolstered by the municipal government's ambition to boost Shanghai's biomedicine industry, the city's traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) sector is expected to make an enormous leap forward over the next five years, senior city officials said. The sector has set itself the target of earning 7 billion RMB yuan (US$ 846.4 million) in sales by 2005, which will make Shanghai China's most important production base of TCM. The annual growth rate of the sector is expected to reach 31 percent over the period. Shanghai only contributed 2.3 percent to the TCM industry's increase in industrial output value, which has been growing at an average of 20 percent annum for the past five years, the local Wenhui Daily reported. Among the 863 traditional Chinese medicine approved by the Ministry of Health between 1994 and 1999, only 11 came out of Shanghai, 1.2 percent of the national total, according to the newspaper. To achieve the industry's goal, the city government plans to pump some 1.02 billion RMB yuan (US$ 122.8 million) into the sector for an overall restructuring to introduce advanced technology. The investment includes 120 million RMB yuan (US$ 14.5 million) from the municipal government for basic research and the development of new medicines. Shanghai Pharmaceutical (Group) Corp, announced that it will invest 1 billion RMB yuan (US$ 120.9 million) to establish some flagship modern TCM enterprises that meet international standards in pharmaceutical production and management.

(From HealthWorld Online)