Support for healthy development of TCM

Employees arrange pills at a workshop owned by Beijing Tong Ren Tang Group Co Ltd, a traditional Chinese medicine maker.[Photo/Xinhua]

Editor's notes: At a meeting of the State Council, or China's Cabinet, on Sunday, Premier Li Keqiang laid out measures for the upgrading and sustainable development of Traditional Chinese Medicine to better serve people's needs. Following are comments from the media:

Economic Daily

To better benefit people's well-being, the State Council meeting confirmed five major measures to promote the development of TCM, including the exploration and application of modern technologies and industrial models to accelerate the industry's development, making it easier to access TCM services, developing TCM-related healthcare services and increasing the funds and policy support for TCM.

With favorable policies, TCM can ensure its development. That Chinese scientist Tu Youyou was one of the winners of the 2015 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for her work in developing artemisinin therapies should act as a spur to the development of TCM. It should also be a reminder that we should continue seeking new TCM fruits and innovations and push for the sector's modernization and popularization across the world.

To boost TCM development, the core and most pressing problem now is how to cultivate the needed TCM talents that are in short supply in China. The country's current 345,000 TCM practitioners are far from meeting the need for TCM's development. Some problems exposed in the development of the TCM industry were also caused by the insufficiency of qualified TCM practitioners.