A ship unloads its cargo at Taizhou Port. [Photo/cmc.gov.cn]

Taizhou Port – located in Taizhou city in East China's Jiangsu province – was recently approved as a pharma drug imports handling facility by the National Medical Products Administration and the General Administration of Customs.

The port is authorized to import traditional Chinese medicine, excluding Chinese traditional medicinal crops. It's also authorized to import chemical drugs – including anesthetic drugs and psychotropic drugs.

The move is expected to end the history of no drug import ports north of the Yangtze River in the Yangtze River Delta region, benefiting pharmaceutical enterprises in Taizhou city and neighboring cities.

It is projected to reduce logistics costs and solve supply chain blockages and difficulties for pharma groups, incentivizing them to refine the layout of the system to handle the global new drug research and development sector.