Budget 2026: Hong Kong boosts Chinese medicine industry to drive local growth

The Hong Kong government will inject another $500 million into the Chinese Medicine Development Fund to promote research, training and international publicity, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po announced in the budget speech today, as the government continues to promote Chinese medicine in the city.

Cheung King-ho, an associate professor in Chinese Medicine from Hong Kong Baptist University, said the Chinese Medicine Development Fund financially supported research and promotion, rather than focusing on developing basic scientific knowledge as in the past.

As the only Chinese Medicine school in Hong Kong, HKBU regularly gets awarded money from the fund. “Our school has been collaborating with large scientific organizations, such as Microsoft and NVIDIA, assisting in the process of drug selection with artificial intelligence for industry development,” Cheung said. 

Chinese medicine students can train in western medical centres as part of the government’s plan to integrate Chinese and western medical practices, announced by the government in February.  

Chung Yan-ching, 21, a local Chinese medicine student said, “We hope to be included and be trusted in the medical system with government’s policy support.”

Most bachelor degree students in Chinese medicine at HKBU, the city’s only school for Traditional Chinese Medicine,are local students, with less than one-tenth overseas or mainland students, said Cheung.

“Training Chinese medicine professionals in Hong Kong has served as a transitional process of acquiring knowledge from the longer historical development on the mainland from different lineages, appearing as a supplement and extension of industry,” Cheung said.

As the mainland system is more mature, local students are required to do an internship in Guangzhou, Cheung added.  

A mainland PhD student in Chinese medicine from HKBU, Yang Hanhang, 26, said that fewer mainland students come to Hong Kong to study traditional Chinese medicine because there are already many famous traditional Chinese medicine universities on the mainland, such as the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine.

“The welfare of the traditional Chinese medicine industry in Hong Kong is better than the mainland, as the salaries of doctors and PhD students are much higher,” she said.

Lee Ha-yun, Chief Executive of Hospital Authority, said in the Legco conference in 2022, that the salary of a Chinese medicine fresh graduate is between HK$24,000 to HK$34,000, higher than the city’s median income.

According to a survey of the Chinese Medicine Development Fund, the usage of Chinese medical services in 2025 increased by 20% compared to 2020, with 40% for adults under 40, indicating the trend that young people are increasingly placing trust in Chinese medicine for addressing diseases.