The traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) instant granules are expected to achieve rapid growth in the Chinese market.

"As the total scale of TCM market is more than 700 billion yuan in China while TCM instant granules is just around 11 billion, the market for TCM instant granules has huge room for growth," said Wei Mei, deputy general manager of Guangdong Yifang Pharmaceutical Co.

Guangdong Yifang is a subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed China Traditional Chinese Medicine Holdings Co which is the country's largest TCM instant granule producer. In 2017, the TCM instant granules business segment of China Traditional Chinese Medicine Holdings recorded about 5.5 billion yuan in revenue, growing at 26.2 percent year-on-year, and took up about half of the Chinese market by supplying to more than 3,000 Chinese hospitals.

Operating eight TCM instant granule production bases in seven provinces and plantation bases for more than 100 TCM herbs, Guangdong Yifang generated a revenue of over 3 billion yuan last year.

Guangdong Yifang's products were also exported last year to more than 30 countries and regions, worth about 45 million yuan for making food, dietary supplement and personal care products.

“We plan to have 26 TCM instant granule production bases in 23 provinces to boost our annual production capacity to 25,000 tons by 2022,” said Huang He, vice-president of China Traditional Chinese Medicine Holdings.