(No subject)

[Guest guest]

Ken/Maria

 

RE: " Administration of "

 

The following article was sent to me while your conversation was just taking

place and I don't mean to be rude by interrupting your question Ken to Maria

about the use of granules and decoctions. The article was from a Singapore

press interactive and was interesting because it seemed germain to the

conversation and how some of the Chinese TCM community regard the new

imported means of production.

 

........

 

This message was forwarded to you from Straits Times Interactive

(http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg) by sharmaine

 

China losing hold on its traditional medicine

by Larry Teo

 

 

CHINESE medicine is fast losing its 'Chinese-ness'.

 

China's position as the centre for its traditional medicine has been eroded

by Japan, South Korea and even Germany, which are flooding the world market

with their own brand of Chinese cures.

 

The situation is so serious that it has sparked calls from the country's

Chinese medicine community for a national effort to reverse the tide.

 

At stake is not just cultural pride, but also a home market worth more

than US$5 billion (S$8.7 billion) a year and a world market surpassing US$16

billion in value, of which China has only a 3-per-cent share.

 

Not helping the situation is the fact that China must slash import tariffs

for medicine by 60 per cent next year.

 

The cut, required under World Trade Organisation regulations, will trigger

a massive influx of foreign-made Chinese medicines, according to a

commentary in the People's Daily, China's flagship newspaper.

 

But going by recent figures, the reality is that China has already been

losing ground to such medicines.

 

In 2001, while China registered a trade surplus of US$238 million for

Chinese herbs, its patent Chinese medicines ran up a deficit of US$390

million, which worked out to an overall loss of US$152 million.

 

That was just the latest blip in a downward trend which began 10 years

ago.

 

And China's Chinese medicine community feels it is time to act.

 

'All in my trade feel that it is our national duty to counteract the

growing inflow of foreign companies and products,' Hongkonger Sammy Lee, who

heads the Nanfang Lee Kum Kee Company, told the People's Daily recently.

 

Mr Lee's company deals in health food developed from traditional Chinese

medicine.

 

So, what has weakened China's position?

 

The country, which has catalogued more than 12,000 natural substances as

medicines in over 3,000 years, has seen little reform and innovation in

Chinese medicine in recent times, suggested a reader in a letter to the

China Information Daily.

 

Ms Li Min noted that the Chinese herb and patent Chinese medicine markets

were still very disorganised, not least because laws for governing their

transaction and usage were so few.

 

China's products also lost out overseas because of unimpressive packaging

and inept promotion, she added.

 

'Without some shake-up and concerted effort, China's Chinese medicine

cannot take on its foreign rivals,' Ms Li stressed.

 

Chinese herbs are cheap and a good bargain for countries with a long

tradition of using Chinese medicine, such as Japan, and those which have

developed an appreciation for natural medicine, such as Germany.

 

These countries import large quantities of herbs from China to manufacture

their own brands of Chinese medicines - a big portion of these find their

way back into the Chinese market.

 

In Japan, the study of Chinese medicine has become a speciality called

kampo.

 

Most of the herbs, which are indispensable for research on new patents,

come from China.

 

Similarly in Germany, where herbal drugs are now in vogue, chemical

extracts from widely-known Chinese medicine such as gingko leaf have been

found to be effective in treating some diseases.

 

'These countries have the money, the medical expertise and legal teams to

systematically make new products,' said legislator Wang Maoxiang early last

year when he proposed that the government help the local industry adopt a

similar manner of operation.

 

'If we do not improve our products and refurbish their image, 'Chinese

medicine' will soon become a term of ridicule,' he said.

 

Some enterprises are making efforts to put China's medicine back on the

world map.

 

Tianjin's Tasly Group tried to market its Dansen pill in the US last year.

 

But the pills - which are for treating hardening of the arteries - failed

to clear the last hurdle: the toxicity tests.

 

High toxicity levels have proved to be the Achille's heel of China's

Chinese medicine.

 

Several cases last year in which people died after taking China-made

health supplements or weight-loss pills have also given it a bad name.

IP Address:208.181.188.60

>

 

 

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