China plans to build a national museum on traditional Chinese medicine, according to Thursday's China Health News.

The museum proposal came from 11 members of the Ninth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, China's top advisory body.

Statistics show that China boasts over 500,000 traditional herbal relics that are either kept by private collectors or housed in history museums, temples, medical universities or research bodies.

The national museum will collect, preserve and exhibit the traditional medical heritage of China's various ethnic groups in its 5,000 years of history, said the newspaper report, which quoted a source attending a recent seminar on the preparatory work for the museum.

(Xinhua News Agency November 8, 2001)