Various organizations and individuals, both from home and overseas, are being encouraged to open more privately-run TCM hospitals in the countryside, particularly western and remote poverty-stricken areas, She Jing, director of the State Administration of TCM, was quoted as saying by Tuesday's edition of the China Daily.

Incentives including lower taxes, will be offered to those who, in the future, set up TCM hospitals in the rural areas where the vast majority of the Chinese people live.

As a medicine on which the Chinese people have for hundreds of years depended, TCM has unique advantages, including its lower prices and the fact that it is widely recognized in the countryside, said Health Minister Zhang Wenkang.

Nevertheless, at present, solely invested foreign hospitals are prohibited from being opened in China, with foreigners only permitted to establish jointly-invested hospitals, according to the Ministry of Health.

(Xinhua News Agency January 14, 2003)