Global and Domestic Market of Herbal Medicines: A Review

摘要

In the present article, an endeavor has been made to present an overview of contribution of herbal drugs to global market from various countries. Herbal medicinal products are getting global importance because of their health benefits. Their demand is going to increase because of increased and domestic interest of consumers in natural products as they are considered safer and more cost effective than synthetic drugs in many occasions. According to World Health Organization (WHO) about 80% population of most developing countries still rely on traditional herbal medicines for their primary health care needs. Overall international trade in medicinal plants and their products was US$ 60 billion in 2010 and is expected to reach US$ 5 trillion by 2050. In Asia, the demand of herbal market had almost doubled during late 1990's due to increase in population. Global Nutraceuticals Market has been projected to rise at over 8.3% per annum to reach US$ 30 billion in 2015. A large number of food and pharmaceutical companies are active in the field because they consider that the nutraceuticals market has promising growth potential. This shows that there is tremendous demand for herbal products and there is need to maintain standardization of herbal products for its toxicity due to heavy metals, excessive or banned pesticides and microbial contaminants, chemical toxins produced due to unfavorable storage, improper storage as well as unfavorable storage conditions.