China has a long history of the international trade of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM).And the export products mainly composed of Chinese herbal medicine and its extracts with Chinese patent herbal medicine and health care products as complementary items.The international trade of TCM faces problems of structural disequilibrium in export products and trade barriers.In this study,we used Michael Porter's diamond model to analyze the international competitiveness of TCM industry.We found that TCM industry in China was rich in production factors and broad in market demands,but lack of the related and supporting industries.In addition,compared with the herbal medicine manufacturers in European,American and Japanese,enterprises in China were weaker in the strategy making,market positioning and industry competing.The development of the international market of herbal medicine,the arrival of the aging society,and the introduced policies of the TCM,provide great opportunities for TCM industry' s development.In order to improve the competitiveness of the TCM industry,we propose to increase the international recognition of TCM by developing clinical study,cope with international trade barrier by strengthen international standardization research,and improve the competitiveness of TCM industry by economies of scale formed by the accumulation of the pharmaceutical industry.
Keywords: competitiveness; diamond theory; international trade; traditional Chinese medicine(TCM).