Tonghua is making every effort to build a modern ginseng industrial system featuring high-end positioning, high added value and advanced technologies, accelerating toward the goal of forming a 100-billion-yuan industrial cluster. At this crucial juncture, the production workshop of Tonghua Qingshan Industrial Group Co., Ltd. is bustling with activity. Brand-new domestically manufactured modern oral liquid production equipment operates at full capacity. Batches of Qingshan Drink, a new-generation ginseng oral liquid made with locally sourced Tonghua ginseng raw materials, roll off the production line and are shipped to markets nationwide.

As an outstanding enterprise in China’s intensive ginseng processing sector, Tonghua Qingshan Industrial Group Co., Ltd. draws on decades of profound experience in the industry. Centered on independent innovation, it has forged a distinctive development path: from joint ventures to full-chain domestic independence, and from OEM processing to building benchmark proprietary brands. It serves as a vivid example of how private businesses in Tonghua drive industrial upgrading through independent innovation.

Back in the 1980s, Li Qingshan, Chairman of Tonghua Qingshan Industrial Group Co., Ltd., served as Party Secretary and Factory Director of Tonghua No. 3 Baishan Pharmaceutical Factory. From that time onward, he delved into the research and development of ginseng products. Leading his team, he developed a lineup of ginseng products including the Shenrong Royal Jelly Oral Liquid. Boasting reliable quality, these products won an international gold award and became nationwide bestsellers upon launch, accumulating valuable technical expertise and market reputation for Tonghua’s ginseng industry.

In the 1990s, seizing industrial opportunities, Li Qingshan founded his enterprise. While cooperating with partners to produce the ginseng product Yuanmi-D, he continued to lead the R&D team in pursuing independent research.

“A proprietary brand cannot thrive relying on external support. To truly establish the reputation of Tonghua Ginseng, we must blaze an entirely independent domestic path.” Driven by this ingrained conviction, Li Qingshan and his R&D team independently developed core technologies for ginseng liquid extraction with proprietary intellectual property rights, ultimately realizing full independent control over key ginseng processing technologies.

In 2025, the enterprise’s brand-new modern domestic production line project was fully completed. A new plant covering over 10,000 square meters was constructed, with four production lines adopting advanced domestic technologies. After commissioning, the annual output of Qingshan Drink surged from one million units to two million units.

Independence is never merely a slogan; it means securing control over every single link. All ginseng raw materials used for Qingshan Drink come from local ginseng producing areas in Tonghua. The enterprise has formulated full-process quality standards and inspection systems, implementing rigorous checks from raw material intake to finished product delivery. Regular all-staff quality analysis meetings are held to embed quality awareness within every employee.

Yet the enterprise sets its sights higher.

“Corporate development should never focus merely on short-term gains from a single product. We advance toward the long-term goal of achieving full-chain independent control and all-round brand upgrading,” Li Qingshan stated firmly.

To this end, the enterprise has defined its core development principles: unswervingly root the business in Tonghua’s fertile black soil; unswervingly adopt locally grown Tonghua ginseng as the core raw material for all products; unswervingly build fully independent ginseng brands and pursue innovation driven by science and technology; unswervingly increase industrial investment and expand production capacity to grow stronger.

Committed to full-chain independent control and all-round brand upgrading, the enterprise has gradually built a complete industrial chain covering ginseng cultivation, intensive processing, product R&D and cultural-tourism integration. It will successively launch a host of distinctive ginseng beverages and develop dozens of ginseng food products including ginseng cola, jujube-ginseng drinks, red ginseng honey beverages, red ginseng candy and ginseng tea, forming a diversified product portfolio. Meanwhile, by linking up with local ginseng cultural tourism resources in Tonghua, it creates the featured brand “Ginseng Trail”, deeply integrating ginseng culture promotion with product experience to further extend the value chain of the ginseng industry.

Striving to burnish the golden brand of “Jilin Changbai Mountain Ginseng”, Tonghua Qingshan Industrial Group Co., Ltd. keeps increasing R&D investment in intensive ginseng processing, continuously exploring new technologies and applications for extracting active ingredients from ginseng. Through concrete actions, it contributes to the high-quality development of Jilin Province’s ginseng industry.