OREANDA-NEWS. April 06, 2012. Anhui province's drug sales will top 100 billion yuan (USD 15.9 billion) by the end of 2015, up 66 percent from 2010, according to an industrial plan.

Anhui Provincial Department of Commerce released a five-year program for the drug distribution sector, aiming to build up a drug distribution system that can meet people's demands.

The plan highlighted expanding pharmacy chains in rural areas to ensure each administrative village in the province will have at least one drugstore chain during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) period.

A batch of drug distributors will be nurtured over the next few years to generate annual sales revenue ranging from 2 to 30 billion yuan.

Meanwhile, some pharmacy chains and online drugstores will strive to raise their revenue to 500 million to 1 billion yuan and 2 to 5 billion yuan, respectively, according to the program.

Two medicine markets - one in Taihe county and the other in Bozhou city - will be further developed into China's influential drug trading centers, the plan said.