Second World Congress of Internet-Integrated Traditional Chinese Medicine Opens in Jinan, Advancing International Standards and Global Circulation System for Chinese Herbal Medicines

On October 24, the 2nd World Conference on Internet Industry of Traditional Chinese Medicine (WCIICM2020) grandly opened in Jinan, the City of Springs and hometown of Bian Que. More than 300 leaders from the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) industry and experts in the medical and health fields, along with over 200 industry representatives, participated both online and offline to jointly explore the high-quality integrated development of TCM and the internet industry, promote global innovation in the TCM sector, and cultivate new drivers for TCM development.

Opening Ceremony of the 2nd World Conference on Internet Industry in Traditional Chinese Medicine

The conference was co-hosted by the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (WFCMS), the Jinan Municipal People’s Government, the Health Commission of Shandong Province, and the Healthcare Security Administration of Shandong Province. Dignitaries attending the opening ceremony in person included Ma Jianzhong, President of WFCMS; Sang Binsheng, Vice President and Secretary-General of WFCMS; and Yan Huaguo, Deputy Director of the Department of Medical Administration under the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Industry experts, including vice presidents of WFCMS from 23 countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, participated online. Keynote addresses were delivered by Jim Yong Kim, former 12th President of the World Bank and former Advisor to the Director-General of the World Health Organization; Zhang Boli, Vice President of WFCMS and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; and Zhu Miansheng, Vice President of WFCMS. Provincial and municipal leaders attending the opening ceremony included Sun Licheng, Member of the Standing Committee of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Jinan Municipal Party Committee; Sun Jiye, Vice Governor of Shandong Province; and Sun Shutao, Deputy Secretary of the Jinan Municipal Party Committee and Mayor of Jinan.

Wang Hongzhi, Member of the Standing Committee of the Jinan Municipal Party Committee and Director of the High-Tech Zone Administrative Committee, accepted the plaque for the “Permanent Venue of the World Traditional Chinese Medicine Internet Industry Conference” on behalf of Jinan City.

The conference is divided into four major sections: “Deconstructing the Development Momentum of Modern Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM),” “New Growth Drivers for Internet Hospital Development,” “The Industrialization Path of Smart TCM,” and “A Chronicle of Global TCM’s Role in Pandemic Response.” It features dozens of hybrid (online and offline) parallel forums, including the Academic Exchange on Smart TCM Services for Human Health, the Global Summit on the TCM Internet Health Industry, the Global Forum on Healthcare Information Security, the Forum on Medical Artificial Intelligence and Big Data, and the Forum on Promoting TCM Health Services to Households via the Internet. Attendees engaged in professional exchanges on a wide range of topics, including the digital health industry, TCM exchange and inheritance, specialized disciplines and diseases, ethnic medicine, and investment and financing.

Ma Jianzhong, Sang Binsheng, Jim Yong Kim, Zhang Boli... At the conference, top experts and scholars, industry leaders, and industry representatives from various fields of “industry-academia-research-application” around the world discussed how digital technology can boost the development of traditional Chinese medicine, focusing on the theme of “the development of the Internet plus big health industry in traditional Chinese medicine.”

The conference promotes the accelerated integration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) into the global healthcare system from an international perspective, leverages technological innovation to expand TCM’s presence in the global market, and fosters the robust development of TCM to benefit the public. It also encourages TCM to go global and actively contribute to building a global community of health for all.

In his address to the conference, Jim Yong Kim, the 12th President of the World Bank and former advisor to the Director-General of the World Health Organization, stated that Shandong is the hometown of Confucius and Mencius, as well as the birthplace of Bian Que. He noted that holding the World Internet Conference on Traditional Chinese Medicine Industry in Jinan will further promote the innovative development of the TCM industry and accelerate its integration into the international pharmaceutical system.

Ma Jianzhong, President of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies, and Sun Licheng, Member of the Standing Committee of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Jinan Municipal Party Committee, jointly unveiled the plaques for the World Traditional Chinese Medicine (Herbs) Internet Trading Center, the World Traditional Chinese Medicine (Herbs) Quality Inspection Center, and the World Digital Traditional Chinese Medicine (Bian Que) Research Institute.

At the opening ceremony, Ma Jianzhong, President of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies, and Sun Licheng, Member of the Standing Committee of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Jinan Municipal Party Committee, jointly unveiled the plaque for the World Traditional Chinese Medicine (Herbal) Materials Internet Trading Center. Dong’e County, known as the “Hometown of Ejiao in China,” received a special order: 500 kilograms of donkey-hide gelatin cubes, totaling RMB 1.1 million. This transaction, bearing the number 2020102400000001 as the first deal on the trading platform, has become a significant milestone in the digital development of traditional Chinese medicine, marking the entry of herbal medicine trading into an era of standardization and digitalization.

The “Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Promoting the Inheritance, Innovation, and Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine” propose incorporating Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) into the key components of building a community with a shared future for mankind and international cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, and implementing special projects for international TCM cooperation. Efforts will be made to study and promote the steady conduct of international transactions on existing TCM trading platforms. The conference fully mobilizes global TCM resources to advance technological innovation, application, and the conversion of scientific and technological achievements in TCM.

At the conference, a batch of innovative development projects in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) were centrally launched, including the World Traditional Chinese Medicine (Herbal Materials) Internet Trading Center, the World Traditional Chinese Medicine (Herbal Materials) Quality Inspection Center, the World Digital TCM (Bian Que) Research Institute, the Bian Que Smart TCM Pharmacy, the Demonstration Project for TCM Formula Granules, and the Bozhou Base of the Shandong Internet Traditional Chinese Herbal Materials Trading Center.

Notably, the World Traditional Chinese Medicine (Herbal Materials) Internet Trading Center and the World Traditional Chinese Medicine (Herbal Materials) Quality Inspection Center were officially launched. The Trading Center completed its first online transaction on the day of its unveiling. Liao Jieyuan, Chairman of Shandong Internet Medical Insurance and Big Health Group Co., Ltd., stated that the World Traditional Chinese Medicine Herbal Materials Internet Trading Center connects all stakeholders across the supply and demand sides of the TCM industry chain, providing integrated online services for quality control, trading, payment, settlement, and regulation. This digitalized circulation service system for traditional Chinese medicine will make the entire supply chain more agile, efficient, and intelligent. The establishment of these two centers will provide a strong impetus for the industrialization, standardization, and innovative international development of traditional Chinese medicine.

Liao Jieyuan, Chairman of Shandong Internet Medical Insurance and Health Group, Introduces the Progress in Promoting the Internet-Based Traditional Chinese Medicine Industry

In his address, Sun Jiye, Vice Governor of Shandong Province, stated that Shandong would seize the opportunity presented by the World Internet Conference on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Industry to vigorously support the integrated development of production, supply, and marketing of TCM materials. The province will focus on strengthening two pioneering initiatives: establishing an international online trading platform for TCM materials and forming a cross-provincial procurement alliance for TCM materials. These efforts aim to drive the development of the TCM industry and continuously enhance the public’s sense of gain, happiness, and security.

In his address at the conference, Academician Zhang Boli stated that the formulation and improvement of international standards for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) across the entire industrial chain, along with a modernized global TCM distribution system, are critical conditions for further promoting the high-quality development of the TCM industry. The establishment of a World Quality Testing Center for TCM Materials and the construction of a full-process traceability system for TCM quality “from farm to patient” will help facilitate the development of international standards for TCM.

At the opening ceremony, Wang Hongzhi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Jinan Municipal Party Committee and Director of the High-Tech Zone Administrative Committee, accepted the plaque designating Jinan as the “Permanent Venue for the World Congress on Internet Industry of Traditional Chinese Medicine” from Ma Jianzhong, President of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (WFCMS), on behalf of Jinan City. As the province hosting the permanent venue, Shandong boasts a solid foundation for the development of the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) sector, rich cultural heritage, and a modernized TCM service system. Meanwhile, Shandong Province has listed the medical, elderly care, and health industry as one of the “Top Ten” industries in its major initiative to convert old growth drivers into new ones. A series of innovative practices centered on digital health have laid a robust foundation for the high-quality development of the TCM cause and industry.

Address by Ma Jianzhong, President of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies

In his address, Sun Shutao, Deputy Secretary of the Jinan Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China and Mayor of Jinan, stated that Jinan would seize the opportunity presented by the World Internet Industry Conference on Traditional Chinese Medicine to further broaden its horizons, leverage its strengths, and make every effort to promote the inheritance, innovation, and development of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The city aims to continuously improve the TCM service system, fully capitalize on the unique advantages of TCM, focus on fostering its inheritance and innovation, and steadily advance the high-quality development of the TCM industry.

In April this year, Shandong Province established the Shandong Internet Medical Insurance and Health Service Platform, issuing the nation’s first platform-based electronic medical insurance settlement statement for an internet hospital. This initiative has built a comprehensive healthcare security service system integrating “Internet + medical insurance + medical care + pharmaceuticals,” with “Digital Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)” emerging as one of the most innovative services within this system. In July, the nation’s first inter-provincial TCM procurement alliance was founded in Shandong. As the largest innovation consortium for the TCM industry nationwide, the alliance leverages a digital platform to gradually establish a cross-regional digital service system for traditional Chinese medicinal materials trading.

Seizing the opportunity presented by the conference, Shandong has once again propelled the innovative upgrading and large-scale clustering of its digital health industry. This initiative saw the launch of the World Traditional Chinese Medicine (Herbal Materials) Internet Trading Center and the World Traditional Chinese Medicine (Herbal Materials) Quality Inspection Center, as well as the inauguration of the Shandong Health Building, the nation’s first provincial-level digital health complex. Attendees at the conference received detailed briefings at the Shandong Health Building on a suite of public-benefit digital health support projects that officially moved in on the same day, including the Shandong Medical Insurance Intelligent Monitoring and Data Analysis Center, “Qilu Bao,” an inclusive supplementary medical insurance product, the Shandong Bianque Internet Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the Shandong Medical Insurance Big Health Internet General Hospital. The activation of this digital health complex will facilitate the development of the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) sector and industry in Shandong across multiple dimensions.

“Standardizing the application of big data in health and healthcare through the ‘Internet + Healthcare’ model to better meet public needs is a favorable measure that leverages high technology and new business formats to significantly improve the quality and efficiency of national medical services.” Chairman Ma Jianzhong spoke highly of Shandong’s innovative practices and stated that the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies will actively engage in broader and deeper cooperation with Shandong. By leveraging domestic and international resources and mobilizing its global membership, the Federation will work hand in hand to promote the development of the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) industry and make new contributions to enhancing TCM’s competitiveness in the international healthcare sector.