On November 5, the symposium about sweet potato industry of China, Japan and South Korea washeld in YichangTaohualing Hotel.

Zhang Lubiao, deputy director of The Cooperation Department, Ministryof Agriculture, Lu Xiaoping, director of The International Potato Center in the Asia-Pacific, Ma Daifu, chief expert of National Sweet potato Industry Technology Research and Development Center, industry experts and entrepreneurs from Japan and South Korea attended the negotiation.

Vice mayor, Wang guobin delivered theaddressat opening ceremony and signed strategic cooperation agreements with Japanese Sweet potato Association, South Korea Sweet potato Association, National Sweet potato Industry System Research Center and the Research Institute of Nanjing Agricultural Mechanization of Ministryof Agriculture.

In his opening address, Mr. Zhang Lubiao said thatChina, Japan and South Korea are the main areas for sweet potato and the main consumption areas of the sweet potato in the world. Both the production and processing of sweet potato represent the highest levels of the world.

He also hoped that Hubei Province and Yichang City can seize this opportunity to strengthen international cooperation, quicken development of sweet potato industry, continuously expand applications and demonstrations of the sweet potato new varieties and new technologies, and aim to build a world-class sweet potato industry base.

According to the research by the National Sweet potato Industry Technology System, the amount and the scale of sweet potato processing enterprises in Hubei ranked among the top in China, and Yichang ranked the top in Hubei.

At present, Yichang sweet potato planting areas cover more than 0.7 million mu and the total output reaches 1.1 million tons.

There are 6 high and new technology enterprises and provincial, municipal agricultural industrialization key leading enterprises and more than 60 professional cooperatives in Yichang. The annual processing capacity can achieve 0.4 million tons.

Cooperating with many scientific research institutesand companies, Yichang Agricultural Sector innovated the planting technology of sweet potato, led the drafting of two local standards for sweet potato in Hubei province, and obtained several patents.

The Japanese and South Korean representatives, the representatives of domestic experts and the representatives of enterprises in Hubei province will pay a visit to Dangyan, Changyang and Jingmen to inspect the sweet potato production base and processing enterprises. (Reporter ZhengGuanghua)