Vietnam's Traditional Medicine Plan Aims for Global Promotion and New Workforce

Vietnam's President and Party General Secretary To Lam has ordered a comprehensive strategy to develop the country's traditional medicine system. The plan calls for preserving and training the aging cadre of lương y (traditional doctors), digitising the corpus of hereditary remedies, and strengthening intellectual‑property protection to standardise and modernise products.

The government will build a national database, expand research and clinical trials, and create flagship centres to position Vietnam as an Asian hub for traditional medicines by 2045. Currently, Vietnam operates 66 public and 10 private traditional‑medicine hospitals, accounting for about 16% of hospital beds and handling roughly 7 million patient visits annually, yet this represents only about 3.3% of total health‑service capacity. The strategy seeks to boost these figures, integrate traditional knowledge with modern science, and promote Vietnamese remedies abroad through health tourism and export initiatives.