Chinese government has designated traditional medicine production as a strategic industry, a senior technology official told participants to an international conference held in Chengdu Sunday.

Minister of Science and Technology Xu Guanhua said the Chinese government has mapped out a detailed strategy in developing the traditional medicine industry. Modernization of the medicine has been inscribed in the country's primary agenda for scientific and technological exploration.

The Second International Technology Conference on the Modernization of Chinese Traditional Medicines opened in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, on Sunday, attracting 3,000 government and corporate representatives from 43 countries and regions worldwide.

Vice minister of Science and Technology Liu Yanhua made a keynote speech at the conference, saying that international demand for the traditional Chinese medicine has risen dramatically in recent years, which has boosted the adoption of modern scientific breakthroughs in the industry.

The country's production value of traditional medicine, which is also known as herbal medicine, amounted to 95.8 billion yuan (about US$12 billion) in 2004, up 18.3 percent from the previous year.

Liu said net yield and profit rate of the traditional medicine production is much higher than the average level of the country's medication industry.

The country has built 14 technological development bases and eight demonstration plantation bases of traditional medicine in the past five years, said Liu.

So far, there are some 1,000 varieties of medicinal herbs available on the market with some 150 strains artificially cultivated. The plantation area has reached one million ha. nationwide, representing a 90 percent increase from the year 2000.

Liu said China has developed cultivation technology of some 500 varieties of medicinal herbs. The plantation has become a new source of income for Chinese farmers in backward mountainous regions. Many inland provinces such as Hebei, Guizhou, Sichuan, Shaanxi and Shanxi have designated traditional medicine as a pillar industry.

(Xinhua News Agency September 26, 2005)