Romania's first International Conference on Traditional Chinese Medicine was held recently in the central city of Sibiu, under the theme "Building B&R Civilization, Sharing Healthy Lives".

"The conference is of great significance to the development of a TCM culture in Europe, especially in Central and Eastern Europe," Professor Constantin Oprean, the Romanian director of the Confucius Institute at Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, said at the opening ceremony of the conference jointly hosted by the Romanian university together with the Yangzhou TCM Hospital and the Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine.

At the event, Oprean emphasized that the conference would be not only the beginning of high-end exchanges in TCM between China and Romania, but also a way to promote the therapy in Romania and its neighboring countries.

Xia Lei, the educational representative of the Chinese embassy in Romania, said that TCM is an important cultural treasure and the conference constituted an important platform for exchange and cooperation, integrating academic resources and improving academic standards to promote the quality, safety and accessibility of TCM in Romania, an important country involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as to other countries around Europe.

During the three-day conference, scholars conducted extensive dialogue and exchanges related to TCM.

Speakers on the first day of the conference included vice-president Tang Zhishu and Xu Hongbo from the Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine; Liu Yanqing from Yangzhou University; Zhang Xiaochun and Dai Xiaojun from the Yangzhou TCM Hospital; Angela Tudor and Reghina Patru, president and vice-president of the Romanian Society of Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well as TCM practitioners from Ireland and other countries.

In their reports, the Chinese experts and scholars introduced developments in TCM and innovation in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, and held question and answer sessions about future TCM research; while the TCM practitioners in Romania gave a detailed introduction about the promotion and development of TCM in the country, expressing their hope for further international exchanges and cooperation.