Imported medicinal materials are an important part of Chinese medicinal resources. To be specific, about 10% of the around 600 commonly used Chinese medicinal materials are from abroad, and the introduction of foreign medicinal materials has promoted the development of Chinese medicine. Amid the advancement of reform and opening up and the "Belt and Road" Initiative, major headway has been made in the cross-border trade in China, bringing opportunities for the import of medicinal materials from border ports. However, for a long time, there is a lack of systematic investigation on the types of exotic medicinal materials at border ports. In the fourth national census of traditional Chinese medicine resources, National Resource Center for Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, together with several organizations, investigated the nearly 40 border ports, Chinese medicinal material markets, and border trade markets in 6 provinces/autonomous regions in China for the first time and recorded the types, sources, circulation, and the transaction characteristics of imported medicinal materials. Moreover, they invited experts to identify the origins of the collected 237 medicinal materials. In addition, the status quo and the problems of the medicinal materials were summarized. This study is expected to lay a basis for clarifying the market and origins of imported medicinal materials as well as the scientific research on and supervision of them.
Keywords: imported medicinal materials; market survey; origin of medicinal material.