The PEFOTS Board Members were received at the Portuguese Parliament by

Mr. Paulo Pisco is The Chairman of the Parliament commission for regulation of non-conventional medicine, including Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine. Mr. Francisco Louça is the Chairman of the left
wing party "Bloco de Esquerda". Mr. Louça and his political party are responsible for designing and
proposing the Law of Non-conventional Medicines. That law was approved by the Portuguese
Parliament on 30 may 2000 and should have been implemented after discussion and details of regulation
by the Health Commission of the Portuguese Parliament. This commission did create within
itself a specific committee for non-conventional medicines and Mr. Paulo Pisco was chosen to be the
Chairman. Mr. Paulo Pisco is a deputy of the Socialist Party (PS), and the PS is the ruling Party in the
Portuguese Government at the moment.the Portuguese Deputy Mr. Paulo Pisco and Mr. Francisco Louça.

Both Deputies have informed us that the Law of Non Conventional Medicines was approved during
the last meeting of the specific committee for non-conventional medicines and that this is the last
step before the law becomes effective. In fact, after this final step, the law is to be voted on by the
Parliament and until today all laws that have been approved by the Health Commission were also approved by the Parliament.However the parliament has been dissolved so there was no voting on the law. Both deputies promised the PEFOTS's Board that they will propose the law to the next Parliament after the elections on 17 March 2002. They also asked PEFOTS for help with future regulation of TCM matters by providing them
information and scientific work. Unfortunately, the right wing parties who won the March election were not in favour of Complementary Medicine.

The Chinese Embassy
The Chinese Embassy received the PEFOTS's Board and offered us a dinner at the Embassy. The representatives of China and the Embassy present at this meeting were: Mr. Liu Ren Qing, First Secretary for Science and Technology; Mr. Lu De Shang, Cultural Adviser; Mr Zhao Xiao Zhong for The Chinese press XinHua and Mr.
Duan Juhua, Political Advisor. The delegation from PEFOTS presented itself as the Board and Dr. Pedro Choy as the PEFOTS representative from Portugal. The Embassy congratulated PEFOTS' work and recognizes that TCM in Portugal is already a reality for the general public. They admit this has happened with the effort for divulgence made by the APA-DA (member of PEFOTS in Portugal) and its Chairman Dr. Pedro Choy, who is also Vice President of PEFOTS. The Embassy offered to support us in future negotiations with the Portuguese official entities and nominated Dr. Liu to be side-by-side with Dr. Choy in future meetings with the government and
parliament. In addition, it was said that in the future PEFOTS representation in Portugal will be consulted
on any kind of issue regarding TCM.

Press Conference
At 18 hours on January 12th, the PEFOTS Board gave a Press Conference which was attended by several journalists plus 500 members of APA-DA. Dr. Choy introduced the attending PEFOTS members of the Board. Dr. Dong, as representative of PEFOTS, spoke to the audience about PEFOTS constitution, statutes, aims, and benefits for the members, as well as the benefits for TCM in Europe and the World. Journalists and all persons present enthusiastically applauded Dr. Dong Zhi Lin's speech