Thousands of tons of Chinese medicinal herbs flood into Vietnam

Every year, Vietnamese people spend hundreds of millions of dollars importing medicinal herbs from China because they are cheap.

According to the General Department of Customs, in the first four months of the year, Vietnam spent about 113 million USD to purchase medicinal materials, up 12.6% over the same period. Of which, China is the main market supplying medicinal materials to Vietnam, accounting for nearly 62% of the total turnover, reaching 69.7 million USD, up 22.1% over the same period.

The second largest source of supply came from India, with 16.2 million USD, down 4.3%. With a growth rate of 133%, Thailand's medicinal herb imports reached 5.6 million USD. Some other countries such as Germany, Italy, Switzerland... also exported medicinal herbs to Vietnam.

Every year Vietnam imports thousands of tons of raw materials and medicinal herbs from China.

China is considered the kingdom of medicinal plants. In fact, the import of medicinal plants from this market is constantly increasing. In 2015, Vietnamese people also spent up to 338 million USD to import medicinal plants, of which China accounted for 198 million USD.

According to statistics, Vietnam uses about 60,000 tons of medicinal herbs each year. Thus, each year Vietnamese people buy tens of thousands of tons of medicinal herbs to make medicine. If we count the unofficial trade, the number is even larger.

Some types are imported by many traders such as Coix, Astragalus, Cimicifuga, Gastrodia elata, Dioscorea, Eucommia, Smilax glabra, Mint, Codonopsis pilosula, and Ginseng. In particular, there are many medicinal plants that are available in Vietnam but are still imported such as Polygonum multiflorum, Panax notoginseng, Ganoderma lucidum, Hawthorn, etc. This situation has lasted for decades, and the amount of imports, including unofficial channels, is very large.

Vietnam currently has about 4,000 types of plants and fungi that have medicinal uses, of which 70% are exploited naturally and the rest are planned for cultivation. However, the cultivation of medicinal plants in the country is deficient and fragmented.

Vietnam used to be a medicinal herb exporter in the 1960s and 1970s, but now it is completely dependent on China. Many precious medicinal herbs even flow to China, and then poor quality products are imported.

Speaking to VnExpress, the director of a pharmaceutical company in Hanoi said that Chinese medicinal herbs are easy to buy and cheap, so they are chosen by many companies. The price is much cheaper than domestic medicinal herbs. Therefore, many medicinal plants, although grown domestically, are out of favor because of their high prices.

"Small medicinal enterprises do not have the potential to invest in all stages from production, consumption to growing raw materials, so they choose to import. Investing in building clean medicinal plant growing areas requires a lot of effort and investment. Only a few large enterprises such as Traphaco, Hau Giang Pharmaceutical, Pharmaceutical Corporation... can supply a part of the raw materials themselves," he said.

However, cheap Chinese pharmaceuticals have many potential risks and are unsafe, thus greatly affecting the quality of the drugs.

Recently, the results of testing 400 medicinal samples of the Central Institute for Drug Testing were announced, showing that more than 60% were not of good quality, of which 20% were mixed with trash, sand, cement, impurities, and even soaked with toxic chemicals.

In 2015, the Department of Traditional Medicine Management took 227 medicinal herb samples for testing and found that 60% of the medicinal herb samples did not meet quality standards in terms of content, active ingredients, and were counterfeit medicinal herbs.

According to VNE