Decision No. 1976/QD-TTg of Oct 30,2013, approving the master plan on medicinal plant development through 2020, with orientations toward 2030

 THE PRIME MINISTER

Decision No. 1976/QD-TTg of Oct 30,2013, approving the master plan on medicinal plant development through 2020, with orientations toward 2030

Pursuant to the December 25, 2001 Law on Organization of the Government;

Pursuant to the June 14, 2005 Pharmacy Law;

At the proposal of the Minister of Health,

DECIDES:

Article 1. To approve the master plan on medicinal plant development through 2020, with orientations toward 2030, with the following principal contents:

I. PLANNING VIEWPOINTS

1. To sustainably develop medicinal plant resources in Vietnam on the basis of efficient use of every potential in natural and social conditions to develop medicinal plant zones in association with preservation and rational exploitation of natural medicinal plant sources, and protection of biodiversity and ecological environment.

2. To develop medicinal plants toward commodity production to meet market demands, associating material production with product consumption, building of medicinal plant zones with processing industry, diversification of the product structure to ensure safety, quality and high competitiveness, meeting domestic consumption and export demands.

3. The State supports investment in scientific, technical and technological research and application in the protection of gene sources and exploitation of natural medicinal plants, medicinal plant cultivation, and processing of medicinal plants and their products.

4. To encourage various economic sectors to invest in the development of medicinal plant cultivation, further export medicinal plants and their products, contributing to the gradual increase of the proportion of pharmaceutical industry in the gross domestic product (GDP).

II. OBJECTIVES

1.     General objectives

a/ To develop medicinal plants into a commodity production industry based on science and technology application, renovation of equipment used in researches into selection and creation of strains, cultivation, processing, extraction and technology transfer, aiming to create high-quality products competitive in domestic, regional and world markets.

b/ To manage, sustainably exploit and use medicinal plant resources to achieve medical and social development objectives; to attach importance to the protection, preservation and development of precious and valuable medicinal plant genetic resources; to preserve, promote and enhance the protection of traditional knowledge about the use of medicinal herbs of various ethnic communities.

2.     Specific objectives

a/ To preserve and exploit natural medicinal plants

- To plan forest zones and areas with natural medicinal plants in 8 key medicinal plant zones in the northwest and northeast regions, including Red River delta, northern Central Vietnam, coastal areas of southern Central Vietnam, Central Highlands, and eastern and western South Vietnam, in order to select and rationally exploit 24 kinds of medicinal plants (Appendix I), reaching about 2,500 tons of medicinal materials a year.

- To build 5 national gardens for preservation and development of medicinal plants representing different ecological regions, where medicinal plants collected from different localities and representing typical climatic regions are preserved and cultivated to serve scientific research and medicinal plant development. To strive to preserve 50% of Vietnam’s total medicinal plant species by 2020 and 70% by 2030.

- To concentrate on the protection and preservation of valuable endemic and aboriginal genetic resources facing a high risk of extinction. To incrementally protect the safety of existing medicinal plant species currently at risk of extinction for sustainable development in nature.

- To effectively prevent the stealing and illegal export of indigenous genetic resources.

b/ To develop the cultivation of medicinal plants

- To plan the development of 54 advantageous medicinal plant species of the 8 ecological regions (Appendix II) suitable to their growth and development conditions so as to satisfy 60% of the total domestic pharmaceutical demand by 2020, and 80% by 2030, and increase the export of domestic medicinal plants and their products.

- To build concentrated medicinal plant cultivation zones suitable to each ecological region and with a scale capable of meeting market demands; to strive to develop the processes of cultivating 60 medicinal plant species by 2020, and 120 species by 2030 in accordance with the principles and standards of the good agricultural and collection practices for medicinal plants of the World Health Organization (GACP- WHO).

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