BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) — The number of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) hospitals in China has increased by 500 in five years, a rise of 15.5 percent, a TCM official said on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the number of TCM outpatient departments and clinics increased by 531 and 5,890, said Wang Guoqiang, director of the State Administration of TCM at the 2016 national TCM meeting.

In 2014, there were 530 million visits to TCM hospitals, accounting for 17.9 percent of total hospital visits across the country, Wang said.

In addition, the TCM industry became a 730 billion yuan (110.8 million U.S. dollars) industry in 2014, representing one third of the total industrial output of China’s medical industry.

The import and export revenues for the TCM industry amounted to 4.63 billion U.S. dollars in 2014, according to Wang.

China has been promoting the modernization of TCM and has been pushing for TCM to be accepted and popular worldwide. Tu Youyou’s winning the Nobel Prize with a TCM-based anti-malarial drug served as a boon to the industry.  Enditem