China's exports of traditional Chinese medicine account for only 5% of the world's total is a false proposition

After Canada's Ministry of Health warned the public at the beginning of the year not to buy and take many kinds of Chinese patent medicines containing heavy metals such as excessive mercury and lead, on August 20, the British drug administration (hereinafter referred to as "the British drug administration") also issued a warning on its website to remind consumers of the risk of toxicity of Chinese medicine According to local media reports, the UK drug administration is preparing a ban on the import of Chinese patent medicines, which will ban the sale of Chinese patent medicines in the UK from the beginning of next year Why is it so hard for traditional Chinese medicine to go abroad? The reason why the export is blocked is that Westerners have misunderstandings about traditional Chinese medicine: "all traditional Chinese medicine, whether it is traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese herbal pieces or Chinese patent medicine, which has been strictly approved and listed by the State Drug Administration, are in line with relevant laws and regulations." Wang Lian, a spokesman for the State Administration of traditional Chinese medicine and director of the general office, told reporters that "all Chinese patent medicines, whether sold at home or abroad, are in line with the standards of the State Drug Administration and are guaranteed in terms of quality." As for why traditional Chinese medicine is frequently warned and blocked for quality and safety issues overseas, Wang Lian said that this is due to the different test standards for traditional Chinese medicine abroad and at home "Most of the traditional Chinese medicine is extracted from natural and wild animals, plants or minerals, which include both ingredients beneficial to human body and some substances that will inevitably cause harm to human body." Wang Lian explained to China Economic Weekly that "the vast majority of traditional Chinese medicine is taken by prescription and compatibility It can not be taken alone because it contains toxic ingredients in a single [4.96% capital research report] Traditional Chinese medicine It needs to be combined with other traditional Chinese medicine to enhance the curative effect and reduce side effects." Cao Hongxin, director of the planning and Finance Department of the State Administration of traditional Chinese medicine, explained the price of cinnabar as an example "Some countries question the mercury content of our traditional Chinese medicine, which is actually confusing the price of mercury and cinnabar." He pointed out that the price of cinnabar is a compound of mercury, which is not a concept with mercury Traditional Chinese medicine cannot contain mercury, but it can have the price of cinnabar "For thousands of years, the price of cinnabar has been recognized in Chinese materia medica and pharmacopoeia as a tranquilizing and eye-catching product Some of Tongrentang's classic prescriptions also contain the price of cinnabar, and the content is within the safe dosage range of the national pharmacopoeia " Cao Hongxin said "European and American countries think that traditional Chinese medicine is food rather than medicine They think that traditional Chinese medicine should be non-toxic and harmless and can be taken at will." Yu Zhibin, deputy director of the traditional Chinese Medicine Department of the China Chamber of Commerce for the import and export of health care products, told reporters, "in fact, traditional Chinese medicine is the same as western medicine, and it needs to be taken according to the doctor's instructions Blind use will be harmful to the body." In addition to gradually solving the misunderstanding of western countries about traditional Chinese medicine, Wang Lian also told reporters that in order to promote the smooth development of traditional Chinese medicine overseas, the State Administration of traditional Chinese medicine will also increase efforts in the standardization construction of traditional Chinese medicine, and establish a scientific standard of traditional Chinese medicine that can meet international standards as soon as possible Liu Zhanglin, vice president of the China Chamber of Commerce for the import and export of healthcare products, told reporters that the UK's move to ban traditional Chinese medicine was just the beginning of the European countries' stop selling Chinese patent medicines "The directive on the registration procedure of traditional botanical drugs issued by the European Union in 2004 stipulates that pharmaceutical enterprises can register and enter the EU market as drugs if they can provide at least 30 years of medical history and at least 15 years of use history in the EU." Liu told China Economic Weekly "The UK drug administration's recent statement is actually aimed at all unregistered botanical drugs, rather than Chinese patent medicines." However, Liu Zhanglin also pointed out that "as no Chinese enterprise has passed this registration at present, it will be the general trend for other EU countries to ban the sale of Chinese patent medicine in the future." Liu Zhanglin said that the main reason why no Chinese enterprises have passed the registration is that the market scale of Chinese patent medicine in Europe is limited and the enterprises have insufficient motivation to apply "To pass this registration, drug companies need to spend at least several million yuan on registration fees, and drugs must comply with local production quality management standards," Liu told reporters Liu Zhanglin told reporters that the cost of millions of yuan is only the minimum cost that can be estimated If the drug complies with the local management regulations, there will be no other costs, but for the Chinese patent medicine with complex ingredients, it is likely to fail to comply with the local standards, so if the pharmaceutical enterprises want to make corresponding adjustments, the amount spent will be difficult to estimate Liu Zhanglin said that the proportion of Chinese patent medicine exports to European and American countries is very small, so the motivation for pharmaceutical companies to spend a large price to register in EU countries is insufficient He told reporters that in fact, the UK's ban on the sale of proprietary Chinese medicines had little impact on China's actual exports of traditional Chinese medicine Guo Fanli, manager of CIC's consulting industry research department, told reporters: "at present, the proportion of overseas sales of Chinese Medicine Listed Companies in total sales is relatively low, probably less than 10%, and the main sales market is in Asia, so the UK ban will not have a great impact on the net profit of Chinese medicine companies." However, Guo also pointed out that if other European and American countries follow the trend of banning the sale of traditional Chinese medicine, it will not be conducive to the overseas market development of Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises In Zhibin's view, although European countries are not big exporters of traditional Chinese medicine, due to their rigid demand for traditional Chinese medicine, the ban on traditional Chinese medicine by the UK drug administration is likely to lead to the smuggling of traditional Chinese medicine "There are many people in these countries who still recognize traditional Chinese medicine Although the country no longer allows the import of traditional Chinese medicine, they will try to smuggle it In my opinion, this ban may be more detrimental to the British government's regulation of the Chinese patent medicine market " The export of traditional Chinese medicine is not only 5% of the world's total According to media reports, China's export of traditional Chinese medicine currently accounts for only 3% to 5% of the world's traditional Chinese medicine market, which is not even comparable to our neighbors, South Korea and Japan To this end, Yu Zhibin made a clear response to the reporter: "first of all, I have never heard of such a statistics from the World Health Organization In addition, I think this statistics itself is very unscientific and is a false proposition at all." "I've heard this number a few years ago Let's not discuss the authenticity of the data This statistic has its own design problems." Yu Zhibin pointed out that "the term of traditional Chinese medicine only applies to China's mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Both Japanese and Korean medicines are called Chinese medicines, so if the world's traditional Chinese medicine market is counted, it will not include Japanese and Korean medicines at all." "What's more, I don't understand the significance of this statistic It's just like the proportion of Japanese and Chinese medicines in the Chinese market The result of this formula must be very ugly." Yu Zhibin told China Economic Weekly that as for the share of Chinese traditional medicine exports in the world market, Yu said that Chinese traditional medicine includes various products such as Chinese herbal pieces, Chinese herbal medicines and Chinese patent medicines Due to the different calculation standards of various countries, there is no unified and scientific official data around the world But "just take the U.S market as an example, the export volume of Chinese medicine to the United States is far higher than that of Japanese Chinese medicine to the United States If we count the export volume of Chinese medicine, Chinese medicine and plant medicine in various countries, the export volume of Chinese medicine must account for more than 5% of the total.".