Yichang tea is famous in the world. Yichang Tea International Buyer Meeting was opened in Yichang City on 9th, May. Tea buyers from 18 countries, with heads of tea enterprises in our city, met beside the Yangtze River, drinking tea, renewing friendship and seeking opportunities for development. Zhouji, member of Standing Committee of Provincial Committee, met the guests from home and abroad and gave a speech on the opening ceremony. Chairman of International Tea Committee, Ian Gibbs attended the meeting.

　　Zhang Jiasheng, Deputy Secretary and Acting Mayor of Yichang city, hosted this meeting. Zhou Qing and Chen Hua, deputy directors of Municipal People's Congress, vice Mayor Zhou Zhengying and CPPCC Vice Chairman Xi Wangrong attended the meeting.

　　Zhou Ji, representing CPC province, provincial government and municipal government, expressed warm welcome to the guests at present and sincerely thanked the friends for caring about and supporting the social and economic development in Yichang for a long time. He said, Yichang, located on the intersectional part of middle and upper reaches of Yangtze River, is a sub-central city under construction in Hubei Province and a regional central city in China, also is the important source area of Tea-culture, whose yield and output of tea ranked the top in China, and also has high quality that cultivated many famous brands, such as Yichang Black Tea, Maojian Tea, Xiao’s Tea and Chang Shengchuan Qingzhuan Tea(in a shape of Green Brick)and so on. Products were sold internationally, including Asia, Africa and Europe and so on Recent years, we have insisted on the goal of the first-rate of tea powerful city according to the demand of efficiency, ecology and safety so that we achieved the rapid development of tea industry adhering to a road of large-scale, standardization, branding and industrialization.

　　“All of us are friends throughout the world and I serve a cup of tea for you”, said Zhouji. The success of the meeting is a great event of social and economic development and a good thing in the development of Tea-Enterprise in Yichang, which has great importance to tapping tea culture, developing tea resource and economy, growing tea brand and transforming and upgrading tea-industry. We warmly welcome more friends at home and abroad to travel to or invest in Yichang. And we will make use of this meeting to hold the chance of the Belt and Road and to strengthen international cooperation through tea culture so that we can provide more ecological, green and organic tea products to the world.

　　Participants including chairman of International Tea Committee Ian Gibbs, vice president of the Chamber of Chinese Import and export food and Animal Husbandry Commerce Yu Lu, president of the Russian Tea and Coffee Association Ramaz Chanturiya, president of Georgia Partners Fund Saganelidze David, president of Malaysia Tea Commerce Chamber Liew Choon Kong, president of Huahe International Business Consultancy Liu Chuanwu, general manager of Bako company in Tajikistan Botaev Ikrom each delivered a speech at the meeting. They agreed that the beautiful scenery, long history and good tea quality of Yichang would further strengthen their cooperation and push Yichang tea series to a bigger market.

　　Efforts should be made to further refine measures to provide better service guarantee for deeper promotion of cooperation, said the host Zhang Jiasheng, Yichang mayor. Meanwhile, we would continue to seize the opportunities brought by "one belt one road" policy, accelerate the construction of Yichang-Hubei Free Trade Area, take the advantage of the situation and implement the "going out" strategy in full operation, so that greater contribution could be made to speed up the level of opening up to the outside world of Yichang as well as the whole nation..

　　Some of Yichang tea enterprises signed economic and trade purchase intention agreements with tea enterprises from Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Morocco, South Korea, Georgia, Belarus, Tajikistan and other countries at the meeting.

　　It’s learned that as a major tea source in “Tea-Horse Road”, Yichang has a long tea-trade history with European and Asian countries. As one of the earliest port cities along the Yangtze River in the eighteenth century, Yichang was famous for "yihongcha (Yichang black tea)", one of the three black teas in China. The products were shipped to Europe and regarded as top grade tea.

　　Yichang has actively participated in the “One Belt One Road” construction through increasing tea trade with world’s tea enterprises in recent years, thus being classified as “a distinctive and major green tea export zone at upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze river” by MOA planning, meaning enhancing the level of Yichang’s opening up to the outside world while promoting the rapid development of tea industry. Up to now, the tea plantation area has covered about 595 square kilometers, the production reaching 70 million kilograms, which has created the output value of 2.6 billion yuan(0.37 billion US dollars) and comprehensive output value with more than 11 billion yuan(1.6 billion US dollars).(Journalist: Lei Pengcheng)