Maoming has a long and distinguished history in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and nearly 40 percent of its citizens automatically go to a TCM practitioner when they first visit a doctor.

In recent years, the city has paid even more attention to developing its leading TCM industry and it has committed itself to becoming a city that is preeminent in the field.

TCM doctors in Dianbai treat a senior citizen. [Photo/Yancgheng Evening News]

As early as the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234), the famous doctor Pan Maoming developed early TCM in western Guangdong. To date, Pan's TCM know-how has been passed on to 42 generations.

Maoming not only set up the Pan Maoming Cultural Research Institute, but also collected Pan's works to promote the development of Pan's TCM expertise.

As a result, Maoming continues to promote the development of the TCM sector. It has many modern industrial parks and planting bases for Chinese medicinal ingredients. Moreover, Maoming has planted 113,000 mu (7,533 hectares) of exocarpium citri grandis, also known as Huajuhong, a tree used in TCM, as well as 206,700 mu of agarwood and 780,000 mu of longan, which also used in the field of endeavor.

Maoming has built a national-level Huaguhong modern agricultural industrial park in its Huazhou county-level city. What's more, it has constructed a provincial-level agarwood modern agricultural industrial park in its Dianbai district and a provincial-level bio-pharmaceutical industry cultivation park in Xinyi county-level city, which it administers.

The Maoming Hospital of TCM is one of the top 100 hospitals in China. It has one national key TCM specialty and eight provincial key TCM specialties and has trained a large number of first-rate TCM doctors.

The Maoming municipal government and the Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine have jointly built the Maoming branch of the Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine. Plans are for Maoming to provide 10 million yuan ($1.38 million) annually for 10 consecutive years for key specialty training, talent introduction and scientific research activities.

In 2020, the Maoming municipal government and the Guangdong Maoming Health Vocational College joined forces to train 238 TCM personnel for the primary health care system. Maoming plans to deploy all of its township and community health service centers with TCM doctors by 2025.