The new China Northern Medicine Smart Industrial Park broke ground in the Harbin New Zone of Harbin – capital city of China’s northernmost Heilongjiang province on June 18 – according to local officials.

They said that facility is one of the seven major industrial parks that Harbin New Zone had recently planned.

Officials said it will have the China Northern Medicine Trading Center, the Traditional Chinese Medicine Museum and the Traditional Chinese Medicine Health Culture and Tourism Center for help – as well as the Northern Medicine Industry Headquarters Base and Northern Medicine Convention and Exhibition Center – to call on for support.

They said the park will aim to integrate online trading, research and development, education and training, conferences and exhibitions, health care and international trade related to traditional Chinese medicine.

The goal will be to build itself into a comprehensive industrial park in the area -- featuring international positioning, professional development and intelligent management.

Being jointly built by Harbin New Zone -- the only national-level new zone with the theme of cooperation with Russia -- and Zhenbaodao Group, a platform-based health industry cluster enterprise headquartered in Beijing, the industrial park will cover an area of 410,000 square meters, with a construction area of about 820,000 sq m.

Officials said that the park will cost about 10 billion yuan ($1.42 billion) to build.

At a ceremony held the same day, Harbin New Zone and Zhenbaodao Group signed strategic cooperation agreements with nine cities and regions in Heilongjiang province, including Mudanjiang, Jiamusi, Daqing, Jixi and Heihe cities.

Officials said the cities and the company will work together to expand the large-scale cultivation of Chinese herbal medicine.