Mohammad-Reza Shams Ardakani, the secretary of the Vice Presidency’s HQ for the development of knowledge-based economy at the Iranian Vice Presidency for Science and Technology and Knowledge-Based Economy told local Iranian media that Iran as a vast country with different climates has a lot of potential and capabilities to grow medicinal plants and develop traditional medicine.

“More than 80% of the world’s climates exist in Iran. This has helped us to grow more than 2,000 plant species in Iran, some of which only grow in Iran.

“Since Iran has a good climate, there is not much greenhouse cultivation of medicinal plants,” he added, noting that the medicnal plants grow in Iran naturally even without need for watering them.

Shams Abadi noted that Iranian researchers have achieved the fourth place in the world rankings in science production in the field of medicinal plants and traditional medicine, adding that, “The traditional medicine market in the world is a $5 trillion dollar market, and due to our geographical and climatic potential to grow and produce medicinal plants, we can gain a 20% share of this market.”

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