Contracts worth more than 600 million yuan (US$77 million) were signed by foreign buyers eyeing Chinese traditional medicine at the closure of an international conference Tuesday.

The three-day International Technology Conference on the Modernization of Traditional Chinese Medicine closed Tuesday in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, attracting 3,000 academicians and corporate representatives from 43 countries and regions.

Vice governor of Sichuan Liu Xiaofeng said the contracts were signed either in trade or in letters of cooperation intent.

The meeting, the second of its kind held in China, was jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health, State Food and Drug Administration, State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicines and the country's top research institutes.

The conference, which drew government officials from 25 countries and representatives from the World Health Organization, has been regarded as the country's major endeavor to promote the development of modernized traditional medicine industry.

(Xinhua News Agency September 28, 2005)