Medicine industry is directly linked with human’s health, which is reckoned as an everlasting sunrise industry, for its rapid growth, high profits and considerable potential. Since the reform and opening-up in China, domestic medicine industry has almost been maintaining a fast double-digit growth pace, and it is also one of the most promising industries with the fastest developing speed all over the globe.

China is a big producer in chemical API and phyto medicines, and the former has ranked 2nd in the world in terms of its production and marketing performance. Approximately USD 15 Billion in its scale by the year 2004, China’s drug market took the ninth place in the world. An amazing 15% growth rate of China’s drug market was much higher than that of other developed countries. However, China’s spending on medical care merely took up 5.4% of the total GDP, comparing with the larger proportion of 15% in US.A the national economy is soaring, Chinese citizens tend to invest and spend more and more on health care. Sensing the massive consuming potential and appealing prospect of China’s drug market, numerous multi-national investment corporations, such as Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Limited, GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer, Merck have already flooded into China to invest right here.
Southwest China’s Sichuan province was renowned as “a land of abundance” since ancient times, covering an area of 0.485 million km2, the fifth largest constitutional territory in the country; the third most populous province also, Sichuan province is the home to 87.246 million local residents. The Economic development in Sichuan province takes a lead in western regions, thus, it holds a very importance stance in the State’s Western Development Strategy, and plays a critical part in this unprecedented cause.
Medicine industry is one of six backbone industries on which Sichuan provincial government exerts great assistance for the development. Blessed with natural advantages in phyto medicine plantation, the excellent natural environment and profound cultural deposits of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) of Sichuan are conducive to the plantation, processing, extraction and research of Chinese herbal medicines. Therefore, the reservation and varieties of TCM materials, as well as the production volume of prepared Chinese medicines in Sichuan province top the national lists, and the traditional Chinese medicine industry takes the third place in the country.
Sichuan Province has a solid capacity in science and technology. At present, the entire province has around 1.2 million technological personnel in various professions, 55 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences or Chinese Academy of Engineering, 15 key laboratories of the national level. In many areas, such as information technology, nuclear industry technology, Aerospace technology, bioengineering, agricultural science and technology, and stomatology, Sichuan province takes the superior role nationally. With regard to higher education, 68 regular universities or colleges are running in Sichuan province, serving about 0.637 million boarding students, of which, Sichuan University, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Southwest Jiaotong University, and Southwest University of Finance and Economics are a few examples that enjoy positive reputations in China and overseas.
Sichuan province always persists in propelling its infrastructure construction, as a result, an all-round communications network integrating high ways, railways, civil aviation, inland navigation altogether has been created. Thanks to the increasingly improved logistic infrastructure, modern logistic industry has been developing drastically, so that over 100 third-party logistic companies have emerged to deliver services. By the end of 2004, 13 famed foreign super-sized logistic or other types of companies have stepped into Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, to found their offices or joint ventures; MAESK in Demark, APL in Singapore, Golden Eagle in UK, P&O Nedlloyd in Netherlands，REWICO in Germany represent the pioneers to do so. Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport is one of the six nationwide regional aviation junctions identified by the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (or CAAC), cargo and mail throughput occupied the sixth place in the whole nation, and the first in western China. The logistic costs of international aviation are relatively competitive in comparison with other domestic rivals.
Adhering to the guidelines of “great opening-up promotes great expansion, while great expansion pushes great development forward”, Sichuan province is striving for building up a legal environment, credit environment, market environment, service environment, and residing environment characterized by valuing, favoring and protecting commercial business, without relaxing constructing better hard environments at the same time, such as infrastructure environment and ecological environment, etc. All investors in Sichuan province are treated as equals without any discrimination, and their legitimate rights and interest are all put under strict protection.
Sichuan province, a huge market in a sense, conceives enormous commercial opportunities. It catches the eyes from all over the world much more than ever before, with the deepening strategy of Western China Development, and has turned to be a hot attraction to foreign investors. According to the statistics, by the end of October 2005, a total of 7552 companies funded by foreign investment had been approved for establishment in the province; USD 6.111 billion foreign investment had been utilized into practice, surpassing any other counterpart in China’s West. Multi-national corporations show vigorous interest in investing in Sichuan. So far, 104 companies out of the World Top 500 enterprise have established companies or branch organs, among which, 40 chose to direct invest in Sichuan province to set up enterprises. Intel Co., Motorola Co., Ericsson Co., Toyota Co., Bayer Co., Dupont Co., and other world-famous companies settled in Sichuan one after another to extend their businesses.