China's central government released the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) protection and development circular (2015-2020) on its official website on Monday.

The circular, jointly formulated by twelve ministries, including the Ministry of Industry and Information and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the National Development and Reform Commission, is the country's first circular on TCM.

Wang Liming, Chief Engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information, pointed out that the circular has a clear guideline for the protection and development of traditional Chinese medicine. That is, to reduce the dependence on wild resources and promote scientific TCM production.

According to the curricular, by 2020, designated farms should grow and produce the 100 TCM resources included in China's Pharmacopoeia. 50 percent of the TCM raw materials used by enterprises should have determined origin. The annual TCM production should achieve an increase of 10 percent.

To achieve the goals, the curricular has proposed seven special projects to be implemented in the next five years: wild TCM resource protection, TCM production base construction, TCM technology innovation, TCM production organization innovation, and TCM quality assurance system construction, TCM production service system construction and TCM modern circulation system construction. The circular laid out specific tasks for each project, including a fourth national census of TCM resources and setting up a system to monitor and protect them.

By 2020, farm-grown TCM will make up 90 percent of the total production, said Wang Liming.

This article was edited and translated from 《我國首次出臺中藥材規劃 將建設瀕危動植物保護區》, source: Beijing Times.