The opening ceremony of the first Yichang Orange Expo was held at Yiling square on Oct. 22, 2016. More than 40 businesses, cooperatives and dealers from counties and urban districts of Yichang city participated in the Expo with their best-quality products exhibited, which fed the citizens an amazing feast of oranges. The Expo captivated nearly 10,000 people to taste the oranges, though it lasted only two days. (As shown in the picture shot by journalist Huang Xiang)
Zhang Yuxiang, former Party committee member of the Ministry of Agriculture, contract research fellow of the Councilors’ Office of the State Council and president of CHAMA (Chinese Agri-produce Marketing Association), Jiao Taiwen, Party committee member of Agriculture Department of Hubei province and deputy director-general, and city leaders including Wang Guobin, Wu Kangnian, and Cai Jianguo attended the ceremony.
Wang Guobin, Municipal Standing Committee member and deputy mayor, said that orange industry in Yichang is currently at the stage of transformation, upgrading and development acceleration. Next, the Yichang Municipal Government will concentrate efforts on improving orange quality, building brand reputation, enhancing market competitive power, promoting innovation and influence of orange industry to strive for the comprehensive transformation and upgrading of the industry so that orange can be built as a beautiful business card for Yichang and consumers from home and abroad can know, like, and even consciously advertise our products. Meanwhile, it is hoped that cooperation can be strengthened between business people and Yichang to achieve a win-win situation.
Mr. Jiao gave full affirmation to Yichang orange industrial development, he said, Yichang orange industry is at the forefront in the nation and also enjoys an outstanding status in Hubei province. Meanwhile, Jiao expected that Yichang can promote the modernization of orange industry, further improve its technical standard system and greatly enhance the innovation of science and technology and the mechanism to make orange industry serve as an exemplary model in Hubei province. He also suggested that Yichang should step forward to build the orange brand and fully improve brand awareness and overall competitiveness of the industry, making it a beautiful business card of Hubei province.
In addition, the “ten most beautiful orangery” and the “top ten orange cooperatives” of Yichang were announced at the opening ceremony. Ten Orangeries like Baguashan Orange Garden from Yidu city and Yilinghong Ecological Orange Garden from Yichang city and ten cooperatives such as Xiaoxihong Orange Cooperative and Xingxiang Agricultural Cooperative Association won the honors respectively.
During the two-day exhibition, many activities were held, such as orange tasting, “I am the spokesperson of Yichang orange”, Yichang orange industrial development summit, orange purchasing and selling negotiation and its signing ceremony, and orange trade fair, etc.
It is reported that, in 2016, the orange planting area in Yichang reaches over 2 million mu, with the orange output of more than 3.5 million tons and the output value of 20 billion yuan, ranking the top in terms of scale, output and value among all the prefecture-level cities and states in China. “Yichang tangerine”, “Zigui naval orange” were successively awarded the title of “China Famous Fruits”, “the Most Competitive Geographical Indication Products of China”, “the Most Popular Regional Public Brand”.
(Journalist Li Pengfei, Correspondent Fang Suzhen)