New law to regulate Chinese Medicine questions transitory provisions

The members of the First Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly (AL) want assurance on how the transitory provisions of the new law governing the Traditional Chinese Pharmacies and registration of Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCM) will impact TCM business, the Chairman of the committee, lawmaker Ho Ion Sang said in a media briefing after yesterday’s meeting.
The lawmakers expressed concern over how the transitory provisions included in the new law would affect the business of the Chinese Pharmacies and other TCM producers that are already operating under the current rules.
On the line are the differences between the current rules and rules that will regulate the sector in the future, but also the scope of the bill and which types of establishments will fall under the new law’s provisions.
“We will ask the government to clear up our doubts and questions, because, for instance, we know that there are several kinds of stores that use and sell TCM-related products and we need to understand if supplements, soups, and tea-shops are included or not, and what is to be the impact of this new law for these establishments,” Ho said. According to Ho, such questions are included in a list of queries that was raised yesterday to seek answers from the government.
Another of the doubts raised has to do with a proposed committee that will be in charge of inspecting the facilities and venues where TCM and related products are produced and handled. According to Ho, the bill says that such a committee will have the power to issue opinions on the matter but “it does not clarify if such opinions are binding or non-binding.”
The question of whether the committee’s opinions are binding was very important to understanding the supervisory power of the committee, according to Ho.
In general, the lawmaker thinks that the law contains a lot of detailed provisions and will be an important tool to regulate an area towards which the government is devoting significant effort, as it hopes that TCM will be one of the sectors that can help to diversify the economy. He highlighted that the existing laws are very outdated and completely incompatible with the current reality of this sector.
This was the first meeting of the Standing Committee on the topic. Ho said that the main focus of the members was in establishing a comparison between the existing regulations and the new law, ensuring that the new law is more complete while also taking into account the current rules that regulate the industry.
On the last topic, he mentioned the Good Manufacturing Practices, which are international regulations that take into account both the “hardware and software for this activity.” Ho recalled that since 2012, the Health Bureau has been issuing guidelines based on recommendations from the World Health Organization on this matter.