Foreign-made Chinese herbal medicines are sold at an overseas store. (File photo)
(ECNS) – Foreign-made Chinese herbal medicines produced by overseas pharmaceutical companies have become a new favorite among Chinese consumers, according to the Shanxi Evening News.
Although a bit more expensive, consumers are more confident about the quality of overseas Chinese traditional medicines (TCM) because of higher standards and better supervision compared to those made in China, a tour guide named Yu Lin told the paper.
According to the report, foreign-made TCM have taken a large share in China's domestic market, while on the global TCM market outside China, Japan takes up 80 percent and China only accounts for five percent.
Zhao Chaoting, a TCM expert at Xinqiao Hospital affiliated to the Third Military Medical University, told the paper that foreign companies import TCM materials from China, process them, give the medicines a foreign name and they become Kampo formulations.
Experts attribute the phenomenon to the absence of quality standards and patent registrations for China's TCM, as well as incompetent research and development.
