Founded in 1981, China National Pharmaceutical Foreign Trade Corporation (Sinopharm Foreign Trade) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Sinopharm International Corporation (Sinopharm International) and a member company of China National Pharmaceutical Group Corporation (Sinopharm), China's only centrally state-owned enterprise in the health sector directly managed by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council. Founded under the direct administration of State Pharmaceutical Administration Committee (SPAC, former NMPA) with the previous name of China Pharmaceutical Corporation for International Economic and Technological Cooperation, Sinopharm Foreign Trade is one of the first Chinese companies to enter into international businesses in the medicine and health sector. In 1998, Sinopharm Foreign Trade joined hands with three other companies affiliated to the State Pharmaceutical Administration Committee and formed Sinopharm. Then in 2010, it merged with two other state-owned enterprises into Sinopharm International, a subsidiary of Sinopharm.