The production enterprises of chemical raw materials and intermediates in China can be divided into two categories, one is the regular API production enterprises with drug production license and production approval documents, and the other is the ordinary fine chemical plant, which mainly produces API intermediates and crude API. However, due to the high profits of some new drugs developed in recent years, many fine chemical manufacturers have rushed up and their output has increased rapidly, resulting in a rapid decline in the price of raw materials and fierce market fluctuations.

China's chemical API intermediates and crude API manufacturers have two relatively concentrated areas in terms of geographical distribution: one is centered on Taizhou, Zhejiang, with strong export advantages, and is planning to establish chemical API export Industrial Park; the other is in Wujin, Jintan and Changzhou areas in Jiangsu Province, which is characterized by small and medium-sized enterprises, and most of the varieties are new drugs developed in recent years, and the demand for each variety is not large, some enterprises have established fixed sales channels with foreign countries, which are part of the supply chain of foreign contract manufacturers and are closely connected with the international market.

At present, China has been able to produce more than 800 kinds of chemical raw materials, becoming the second largest producer of raw materials in the world.

In 1994, China's output of chemical raw materials was 336000 tons, and in 1999 it reached 430000 tons, with a 5-year growth rate of 28%. Among them, the output of 24 categories of raw materials was 260000 tons, with a growth rate of 33%. China has become the world's largest producer and exporter of penicillin, beta-lactam antibiotics and vitamins.

In 2000, China's export of raw materials reached US $2.25 billion, with an export volume of 106500 tons, up 10% year on year. Mainly exported to the European and American markets, the main varieties are antibiotics, antipyretic analgesics, biochemical drugs, vitamins, amino acids and other anti-infective drugs.

In recent years, there has been a great breakthrough in the manufacturing technology of chemical raw materials in China, and the production level has been improved quite rapidly. The production technology and quality of China's antibiotic APIs are basically in line with the world's top companies, occupying 30% of the international market share. The main varieties with a large market share in the international market are Vc, antipyretic analgesic APIs, and glucocorticoid APIs: Vc is the largest API production in China. Due to the improvement of production concentration and the obvious improvement of technical level, the yield increased from 48% to about 60%, which promoted the steady increase of domestic Vc API in the world market share; the main varieties of antipyretic analgesic API are paracetamol, aspirin and so on. Paracetamol is one of the varieties with the largest output of bulk drugs in China. In 1999, it increased by 28% compared with 1998, with an output of nearly 30000 tons, accounting for about 45% of the world's total output of paracetamol in that year, becoming the second largest bulk drug production variety in China after Vc. In recent years, glucocorticoid bulk drugs have made major breakthroughs in technology, greatly reduced costs and reached the world's advanced level of quality. The domestic market share of the main product dexamethasone API is as high as 90%, and the Asian market share is 50%, and it has begun to enter the European market. In recent years, the number of new drugs in China has increased rapidly. Dozens of new chemical entities are listed in China every year, which promotes the further development of API production.