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Mar 3

Hungry for health products

Beijing (China Daily/ANN) - Every time she takes a business trip to the United States or Europe, Wang Qi is given a shopping list by relatives and friends. Every time, the list is filled with names of high-end cosmetics brands and luxury items.

Recently, however, that list has grown. The 32-year-old Beijing-based executive assistant says she doesn't remember when the list started to grow but the names of nutritional supplements have been piling up. Shopping for vitamins now consumes most of her time shopping overseas.

"People around me seem to be more concerned about their health than previously," Wang said.

With improved living standards in cities and a heightened belief that vitamins contribute to better health, Chinese urbanites have been exhibiting a greater demand for nutritional supplements in recent years. The demand has attracted more nutritional-supplement manufacturers from around the world to cash in on the trend, despite the fact that most of the world's vitamins are already produced in China.

Vitamins in China, which has already cornered the vitamin A and C markets, often go hand in hand with the nation's food industry, with billions of dollars in goods exported each year. There are thousands of drug companies in China.

It is estimated that the sales of vitamins and dietary supplements as well as food and drug additives in China will reach 600 billion yuan ($95.2 billion) by 2015. Additives now take up a large portion of sales in the country.

But one of the main reasons that the door is open for international vitamin makers is that most of the vitamins produced in China are shipped overseas and sold under foreign brands, according to Zhang Yongjian, an expert with the China Health Care Association, affiliated with the Chinese government.

Zhang said other reasons for increased demand include "growing disposable incomes and improved health awareness, together with worsening health problems and an aging population".

According to the latest report by the association, the average spend on healthcare products by Chinese consumers in 2011 accounted for 0.1 percent of their total expenditure. In developed economies, people spent just 0.03 percent on nutritional supplements.

But Zhang, the main author of the report, said that although China's nutritional-supplement industry is far smaller than in developed countries, the business is growing.

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Hungry for health products

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