China becomes main supplier of herbal medicines to Japan, South Korea

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2013-12-30

A Tongrentang store in Beijing. Tongrentang is one of China's largest
traditional Chinese medicine producers. (Photo/CNS)

While China is facing obstacles in the Chinese herbal medicine market at home and abroad, countries including Japan, South Korea and the United States are importing considerable amounts of raw Chinese herbal ingredients and using them to manufacture Chinese patent medicines to earn sizeable profits.

More than 200 Chinese patented medicines will have to be pulled off the shelves in the United Kingdom on April 30, 2014 for their failure to register in Europe in accordance with regulations set by the European Union.

Non-governmental organization Greenpeace released a report earlier in which Chinese herbal medicines that were produced and sold by China's noted herbal brands in seven countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, were found to contain pesticide residues.

Chinese herbal suppliers based in China did not respond effectively to the restrictions imposed in the overseas market to ease the market's trust crisis towards China's herbal medicines, according to the Chinese-language China Business.

In the meantime, foreign suppliers in South Korea, Japan and the United States have cornered 90% of international Chinese patent medicine market. These countries are buying raw materials from China and processing them into tablets or capsules.

The newspaper reported that two-thirds of the materials for Chinese patent medicines in Japan are imported from China.

In addition to China, Japan is the world's largest manufacturer and consumer of Chinese herbal medicines, boasting at least 200 brand vendors. The prescription Chinese herbal drugs market has grown by 15% a year and its annual sales have touched US$1.5 billion.

Tsumura & Co, Japan's largest Chinese patent medicine producer, is the largest competitor against China as far as the internationalization of the traditional medicine is concerned.

The Japanese firm established Shanghai Tsumura Pharmaceuticals in 2001 and filed applications of approval with the US Food and Drug Administration in 2005, which affirmed its position not only in the Japanese domestic market but also in the US market.

Eighty percent of Tsumura's herbal medicines are imported from China as the company builds over 70 herb growing bases that meet Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) regulations.

The Chinese market, on the other hand, trails far behind Tsumura's distribution. Tong Ren Tang, a China-based pharmaceutical company, only has eight GAP bases in the country even though it is the Chinese medicine pharmaceutical company with the highest number of bases in the country.

A market researcher stated that China's herbal medicine industry has to set up safety standard to ensure the quality of herbs by setting up more bases that meet GAP regulations.