According to the public relations and information center of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs, Mohammad Hassan Osareh, the secretary of medical plants sciences and technologies development headquarter, expressed on the opening ceremony of the fourth national festival and exhibition of medical plants, natural products and Iranian medicine (traditional): health and economy are regarded as important issue of sovereignty in Iran and have always been among the concerns of the government and the nation.

According to Osareh, the challenges and threats in the health area are mainly the emergence of new diseases, lack of definitive treatment for some chronic diseases, and the significantly large volume of chemical and unknown compounds used by humans. In this regard, he continued: prolonged prohibition of synthetic drugs due to complications (long list of forbidden compounds by the European Union and FDA of the United States), increased legal constraints and identification of the hazards of chemical compounds (especially in additives, essential oils and artificial colors in food and cosmetics), and catastrophic increase of diagnosis and treatment costs for the states and nations are among the other problems of this field.

He continued: recently, new approaches have been created in this area, including the ever-increasing and tendency of people to use herbal medicines and natural products, changing the global approach to the use of complementary medicine in addition to conventional medicine and the replacement of plant-based drugs, change attitudes in WHO and the recognition of other medical and traditional medicine schools of the nations as well as the medical community, namely the consideration of health of the physical, mental, psychological, social and economic aspects, which have officially accepted in the past two decades and have led to the formation of holistic medicine in the United States.

Secretary of the medical plants sciences and technologies development headquarter mentioned the use of medical plants in various industries, expressing: the area under cultivation of herbs in three countries of China, the United States and Canada reached 393,000 hectares in 1990 to 1,796,000 hectares in 2001, reaching 3,580,000 hectares by 40 percent in 2017.

Osareh reported that the import of raw herbal products in Europe has a rate of 550 thousand tons annually, and more than 150 million people in China have jobs relevant to this field. In this respect, he stated: the economic growth in industries related to natural products has been reported at 21% based on annual reports of the European Union. 

Pointing out that medical plants have always been exploited in various industries, Osareh affirmed that this field is also beneficial in industries such as pharmacy (medicine and dentistry), perfumes, stains, tastes, natural and herbal fresheners, additives, supplements, seasonings and spices, cosmetics, herbal toxins (plant pathology) and herbal fertilizers, herbal sweeteners and beverages, herbal hot beverages, herbal essences and narcotics and analgesics.

Multi-fold Growth of Added-value by Producing Medical Plants

According to the secretary of the fourth national festival and exhibition of medical plants, natural products, and Iranian medicine (traditional), attention to the Iranian herbs industry due to its role in the fields of employment and entrepreneurship, strengthening the health system, adapting to the conditions of dehydration, the people"s belief in medicinal herbs, the important export market in the world, the vast chain of cultivation and industry, the richness of the particularly exclusive plants, employment and entrepreneurship, high added-value in processed materials and conversion industries are of great importance.

The secretary of the fourth national festival and exhibition of medical plants, natural products, and Iranian medicine (traditional) introduced the applicable samples of these compounds to be used in the industry of gums, fizzy beverages, and detergents.

According to Osareh, creation of this capacity is a type of investment. He expressed: a standard raw material refinery should be created in the country. In this case, we will see growth in this field. It is anticipated that we will achieve a high added-value of $16 billion.

He announced the opening of the first raw material refinery with a foreign consultant with a high investment of 120 billion USD and several million euros of foreign exchange capital and expressed that this will happen in the next few months and there will be a high increase in added-value of Iran.

At the end of his speech, Osareh regarded the fourth national festival and exhibition of medical plants, natural products, and Iranian medicine (traditional) as existence and support of Iranian goods in this industry, asserting: support of Iranian products is establishing this exhibition that is inaugurated today.

The fourth national festival and exhibition of medical plants, natural products and Iranian medicine (traditional) will be held November 11^th-14^th 2018 in Musala of Tehran by the efforts of the medicinal plants and traditional medicine sciences and technologies development headquarter.