China is working out a national standard for the quality classification of American ginseng products to upgrade the quality of both domestically-made and imported American ginseng .
The standards, complete and authoritative, will be the first of the kind in the world, said one of the experts who is formulating the standards.
Prof. Li Shudian from Jilin agricultural university said the standards will help safeguard consumers interests, promote the healthy growth of American ginseng industry, and ighten the control on the import of low-quality ginseng .
The regulations cover five types of ginseng : American ginseng, activated American ginseng , American ginseng slices, chewing tablets of American ginseng and bagged American ginseng tea.
In recent years, more Chinese have begun to use American, or western ginseng , for health purposes, and large quantities of ginseng have been imported from the United States and Canada. China introduced the technique for growing the plant in 1980, and developed its own American ginseng industry.
In 1988, the ministry of public health announced that the quality of China-made American ginseng was already on a par with that of the imported kind, and listed it in the Chinese pharmacopoeia.
With a total cultivating area of more than 3.5 million square meters and an annual output of 100 to 150 tons of ginseng products, China is now the third largest American ginseng producer, following Canada and the United States.
Experts from the Jilin agriculture university, Shanghai herbal medicine co. Ltd and Beijing first American development center have been working on the draft of the standards for the quality classification of American ginseng since 1992. the standards are expected to be announced by the end of this year, according to prof. Li.
- SOURCE: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS1997.08.01
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