There is an abundance of ginseng and other Chinese herbs near Tonghua as it is located at the foot of Changbai Mountain. [Photo/Xinhua]

The medical health industry, worth 100 billion yuan ($14.53 billion) is on the rise in Jilin province and has opened a green passage for the transformation of the old industrial base in NE China.

According to the local government, the value of the medical health industry is more than 120 billion in Tonghua, a city located in the eastern part of Jilin province, accounting for about 60 percent of the total medical value of the province.

In the 1950s, Tonghua was a pillar city producing steel and iron, but it started to explore new ways to realize an industrial transformation in the 1990s.

As the city lies at the foot of Changbai Mountain, on which many traditional Chinese medical herbs including ginseng and fritillary are grown, the city decided to build itself into a "medical city".

In the past 20 years, the local government has put into place preferential policies to encourage the development of medical enterprises and to attract investment.

At the beginning there were few medical enterprises and most were short of technology.

Therefore, the government signed cooperative agreements with technology and science departments with fourteen universities in China such as China Agricultural University and China Pharmaceutical University, and organized experts to visit the local medical enterprises and give suggestions on medical development.

Meanwhile, several national and municipal medical technology research centers have been constructed in Tonghua and have gained many technological achievements.

To date, more than 50 TCM products, including ginseng makeup and supplements, are popular both at home and abroad and the proportion the metallurgy industry contributes to GDP has decreased to 1.1 percent.

Tonghua has successfully transformed into a green industry city because of the well-developed medical health industry.