Traditional Chinese medicine is now facing the perfect chance to go global as dissatisfaction with western medicine grows and doctors turn to alternative ways to heal patients.

Surveys conducted by medical institutions show that 49 percent of patients can not be cured by western medicine and 20 percent of patients have side-effects when use western medicine, said doctors of medical science at the just closed doctoral forum on new medicines.

More than 120 countries and regions in the world have established various kinds of institutions related to phytophamacy. Some big phamaceutical firms started to pay special attention to development and research (D&R) of new plant medicines, they said.

The transaction volume of plant medicines in the world market has reached 30 billion US dollars and is growing by 20 percent a year, according to the scientists.

The United States has relaxed its restrictions on imports of traditional Chinese herbal medicines and, in the meantime Chinese herbal medicines have begun to be popular in Europe and Russia, they said.

Traditional Chinese medicine has its unique advantages compared with traditional medicines of other countries and it has good prospects in the world market, said the scientists.