New council to enforce registration, standards to boost industry's

About 42 government posts will be created, at an annual cost of up to $33 million, in a drive to regulate and improve safety standards in Chinese medicine.

The estimated 7,000 practitioners and about 3,000 Chinese medicines will have to be licensed or registered under the plan, which aims to promote Hong Kong as a worldwide centre for Chinese medicine.

A Chinese Medicine Council will be set up to help implement the new Chinese Medicine Bill, which will be put to the Legislative Council on February 3.

Practitioners will have to pass an exam and assessment before being registered unless they have practised for 10 years before January 3 next year and hold certain academic qualifications or have practised for 15 years.

Some of the more potent drugs will be restricted to prescription and regulations introduced for levels of heavy metals such as lead and mercury in medicines.

'The Department of Health will have to recruit 32 people and another 10 posts will have to be created in the government laboratory to register all the practitioners and the medicines at an overall cost of $33 million a year,' Director of Health Dr Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun said. A Department of Health spokesman said it was hoped all the new posts would be created by March next year.