China's plant extract industry: production and sales/import/export/development

Plant extracts use plants as raw materials and undergo a series of physical and chemical extraction processes to obtain plant products composed of one or more natural active ingredients. Plant extracts mostly have antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer functions, and eliminate biological Plant extracts other than alkali generally have antioxidant functions. According to chemical composition, it can be divided into polyphenols (such as tea polyphenols), pigments (such as anthocyanins), alkaloids (such as betaine), plant polysaccharides (such as astragalus polysaccharides), etc.

Plant extract classification

Production and sales

China's plant extracts are derived from the traditional Chinese medicine industry, and the overall development time is relatively late. In the 1970s, some Chinese herbal medicine factories began to use mechanical equipment to extract active ingredients, but as part of the production, plant extracts have not yet been mass-produced. It was not until the 1990s that the international trend of returning to nature rose, and people began to use natural plant products. During this period, China's foreign trade rose, and China's plant extract industry gradually improved. In the 21st century, with the application of more advanced extraction methods such as enzymatic extraction, ultrasound, supercritical extract, membrane separation technology, microwave extraction technology, etc., the yield of extracts has been greatly improved, and China’s plant extract industry has entered Golden development period.

From 2010 to 2018, the output of plant extracts in China increased year by year. In 2017, the output of plant extracts in China was 202,000 tons. In 2018, the output of plant extracts in China reached 236,000 tons, an increase of 34,000 tons compared with 2017.

In 2018, China's plant extract sales revenue was 22.18 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29%; in 2019, China's plant extract sales revenue was 25.05 billion yuan, an increase of 2.87 billion yuan from 2018, a year-on-year increase of 13%.

import and export trade

The export value of Chinese plant extracts is much larger than the import value. In 2018, the export value of Chinese plant extracts was 15.68 billion yuan, and the import value was only 4.81 billion yuan. In 2019, the export value of China's plant extracts reached 16.34 billion yuan, and the import value was only 58.5 100 million yuan.


In 2019, Chinese plant extracts were mainly exported to the United States, Japan, Indonesia and other regions. In 2019, the export value of Chinese plant extracts to the United States, Japan and Indonesia was 2.274 billion yuan, 1.399 billion yuan, and 882 million yuan, respectively.


In 2019, the value of Chinese plant extracts exported to the United States accounted for 13.91% of the total export value, and exports to Japan, Indonesia and South Korea accounted for 8.56%, 5.40%, and 4.51% respectively.


In 2019, Chinese plant extracts were mainly imported from the United States, Indonesia, India, Brazil and other regions, and the import amount was 779 million yuan, 510 million yuan, 338 million yuan, and 317 million yuan respectively.

In the structure of China's plant extract import market in 2019, the United States accounted for the largest share, accounting for 13.31%, followed by Indonesia, accounting for 8.72%, India and Brazil accounting for 5.77% and 5.42%, respectively.


Market size

From 2010 to 2019, China's plant extract market continued to expand. In 2018, China's plant extract market was 11.31 billion yuan. In 2019, China's plant extract market was 14.56 billion yuan, an increase of 3.25 billion yuan from 2018.

Direction of development

The optimization of international standards has promoted the transformation of China's plant extract industry, and quality control has become the main development direction of the plant extract industry. When extracting plants, high-quality extraction equipment plays a vital role. With the optimization of process equipment and the improvement of methods and methods, human research on the human body and plants will continue to deepen, vegetation that meets the needs of the human body will be gradually developed, and there are many products extracted from vegetation. Therefore, based on the new international standards, my country's plant extract industry needs to continuously optimize the extraction process and purification technology, and develop new products in order to better participate in the market competition.