On October 16, the 5th China Yichang (Yiling) Citrus Festival was opened, attracting many foreign guests to experience picking citrus. (Picture by Correspondent Zhang Guorong)

The Fifth China Yichang (Yiling) Citrus Festival & 2015 Annual Conference of the China Citrus Institute was held in Yiling District. The citrus orange experts from Shanghai, Heilongjiang Manzhouli, Qingdao, Taiwan and over 1000 representatives of the travelling merchants and the electricity suppliers from the United States, Russia, Thailand, Vietnam and other seven countries gathered together in Yiling, celebrating the great harvests with the local orange growers.

Deng Xiuxin, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, the principal of Huazhong Agricultural University, announced the opening ceremony of the Citrus Festival. Secretary of Shanghai Jing\'an District Sun Jianping and deputy director of Provincial Agriculture Department Wang Hongling as well as other officials gave speeches at the meeting. At the Citrus Trade Fair held in the afternoon, travelling traders from Russia Jack Industrial Corporation Ltd., Thai Senate Refrigeration Ltd. and Beijing Xinfadi Ltd. and Beijing Carrefour negotiated for a total sale of 395,000 tons, the total agreement amount is 711 million RMB.

The theme of this Citrus Festival is "ecology, technology, quality, market", and the citrus festival is divided into three parts: glamorous orange city, science and technology about oranges and getting the orange worldwide famous. The academic seminar, product display, trade talks, competitions of oranges and other activities showed the orange farmers celebrating the harvest.　　

In recent years, 11 towns, 114 villages, 60,000 households of Yiling District grow oranges. There are three professional towns and 66 specialized villages, the citrus area has been 33 acres, the annual output exceeded 700,000 tons. The area and output respectively rank sixth and fifth nationwide and the top in Hubei Province. Yichang has been honored as “China’s Town of Premature Orange” and “the Flagship of Fruits County in Hubei”. (Correspondent: He Ying; Zhu Yongjie; Reporter: Pi Rongcai)