The bio-medicine industry is set to become a new foreign investment field following China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), and bio-medicine expert predicted Sunday in Changchun.

Research on genetic materials has boosted the development of bio-medicine technologies and international investors have become more confident in the industry's development, said Hou Yunde, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, at the first China Forum for Pharmacology and the Medical Industry which opened Sunday.

Foreign investors would be attracted to the huge market after China's entry to the WTO, Hou added.

Hou said foreign investment would stimulate China's medical industry to expand production and improve management, and would raise the research ability to develop new medicines, greatly improving China's competitiveness on the international medicine market.

Attracted by preferential policies, an improved investment environment and possible huge profits, many foreign investors have already stepped into the Chinese market.

Jilin Province, in northeast China, has approved more than 30 foreign-funded and Sino-foreign joint pharmaceutical enterprises.

Twenty of the 25 pharmaceutical enterprises listed among the world's top 500 enterprises have invested in China.

(People's Daily May 13, 2002)