"In recent years, the annual growth rate of plant extracts has been more than 20%, and the development is very fast. This is a gratifying thing, but there are both joys and worries." Recently, Zhou Xiaoming, President of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Pharmaceutical and Health Products, made a concise and concise speech at the International Report on Plant Extract Industry organized by the Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Chinese Medical and Health Products.
According to statistics, in the first half of this year, China exported 165,000 tons of plant extracts, totaling 226 million US dollars. For the first time, the export volume exceeded that of traditional Chinese medicines and decoction pieces, accounting for 44.62% of the total export value of traditional Chinese medicines, an increase of 45.76% over the previous year. In recent years, the export of Chinese herbal medicines has declined due to the shrinking market of Chinese herbal medicines in Japan, but the export of Chinese herbal medicines has maintained a steady growth momentum in the past 10 years, of which plant extracts have contributed a lot. "Great changes have taken place in the internal structure of the export of traditional Chinese medicine, and plant extracts have become the main force in the export of traditional Chinese medicine."
Zhang Zhongpeng, deputy secretary-general of the Plant Extracts Branch of China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medical and Health Products, said that the current situation of plant extracts industry in China is as follows: rapid development of industry, rapid growth of product exports; numerous production and operation enterprises, fierce market competition; uneven level of industrial technology and equipment, high-tech enterprises and workshop-style. Factories coexist; some enterprises go to the international market, and the development prospects of the industry are promising.
According to experts, before the 1990s, Chinese traditional medicine and food enterprises mostly had plant extract workshop, but there was basically no specialized plant extract enterprise in China. Since 1990s, the international demand for botanical or natural medicines has increased, while China has abundant plant resources, which naturally drives the development of China's plant extract industry. At present, China's plant extract industry has formed a certain scale. There are more than 800 plant extract export enterprises in China, most of which are pharmaceutical and health food companies or foreign trade companies. In the first half of this year, there are 30 enterprises with export volume exceeding 2 million US dollars.
It is reported that most of the plant extracts from China are sold to the markets of Europe, America, Japan and Korea. Experts predict that the annual growth rate of plant extracts in China is very high in the past two years, about 30%, excluding the rising cost factors, the growth rate of plant extracts in China will remain around 20% in the next few years.
At the same time, the plant extract industry has accumulated a lot of problems. The problem of resource destruction and environmental pollution caused by plant extract industry has become more serious. Despite China's reputation as a vast country, in the early stage of development of plant extract industry, Chinese enterprises were at a low level of productivity, and there was no planned harvesting of plant resources, while the long-term recycling of plants was not taken into account. It is destructive mining, coupled with the low-cost plundering of Chinese herbal medicine resources by foreign enterprises. Some enterprises, driven by their interests, even disregard national laws, seriously destroy natural resources, such as Taxus yunnanensis, Gansu licorice and ephedra.
The contradiction between resource protection and environmental pollution has its historical roots: firstly, the destruction of resources caused by the lack of concentration of industrial products is invisible; secondly, the great waste of industrial resources caused by decentralized extraction; thirdly, the environmental pollution caused by decentralized extraction is concealed destruction; fourthly, the rise of extractive industries leads to industrial concentration leading to spear. Shield protruding.
"The plant extract industry must not bear the stigma of"excessive environmental damage". In the future, besides moderately exploiting resources, we should also increase the research on the relationship between industrial concentration and circular economy.
It is reported that in the early stage of development, the domestic plant extract enterprises were small in scale and lacked market R&D and technological R&D power. Most enterprises mainly followed the trend when choosing market and products. The production of products was in a rush and unplanned, resulting in product backlog. The final result was low-price competition, which affected the whole process. The development of individual industries. Generally speaking, like other pharmaceutical manufacturers in China, plant extract enterprises also have many problems, such as large quantity, small scale, low efficiency, single product of most manufacturers, low risk resistance ability, etc. In addition, product quality is not uniform and lack of unified and effective control.
How to reduce the damage to resources and environment and change the image of low quality and low price in the world has become a problem that Chinese plant extract industry has to face. Experts believe that this requires the persistent efforts of government departments and enterprises. The government should focus on cultivating leading enterprises in the industry and strengthen support in fiscal, foreign trade and tax policies. At present, there are few large-scale plant extract enterprises in China. Without certain financial strength, it is impossible to improve the equipment and scientific research level of enterprises, let alone good products, and the competitiveness of enterprises is not high.
In order to control the quality of products from the source and reduce the damage to ecological resources, Zou Jianqiang also suggested that plant extract production enterprises should establish raw material bases. "In this regard, the enthusiasm of local governments is also very high. At present, there are 14 provincial Chinese medicine industrial bases and 8 Chinese medicine industrial bases throughout the country.
In order to enter the international market, Chinese plant extract enterprises should not only strengthen product research and development, develop a series of products with scientific and technological content, but also strengthen the construction and publicity of enterprise image, establish enterprise brand and product brand.
