China is planning to make traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) a pillar industry, according to Xinhua News agency, citing a blueprint released by the State Council on Friday.

The plan is proposing to allow universal access to TCM care by the year 2020. A decade after that, it foresees to playing a great role in to China's social and economic progress.

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The plan calls for equal attention between TCM and Western medicine, arranging tasks such as "Internet + TCM," incorporating TCM with elderly care and tourism, creating new drugs especially for communicable diseases and severe conditions, preserving inherited TCM knowledge and technology and enhancing industrial production of TCM.

The initiative suggests a modification to the existing law and standardization as well as teaching basic TCM to students in the primary and middle school. Aside from the TCM, the country also aims to support research and development of new drugs using indigenous intellectual property under the 13th Five-year plan.

China is currently making robust progress in this field. The National Health and Family Planning Commission has revealed that around 20 new drugs (such as anti-tumor icotinib hydrochloride Chidamide and the hand-foot-mouth disease inactivated EV71 vaccine) were developed within the 12th Five-year plan (between 2011 and 2015) - a threefold increase from those developed 50 years before.

Earlier this month, Catalonia commissioned the first ever Centre of Chinese Traditional Medicine to be established outside Asia following an agreement inked between the Catalan government and a Chinese consortium led by the government Beijing.

TagsTraditional Chinese Medicine, TCM, china, Western medicine