The abundant fruit resources in China's vast western regions promise immense opportunities for foreign investors, according to economists here.

The western regions, including the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, enjoy ample sunshine and sharp differences in temperatures between day and night, which provide favorable conditions for the growth of fruits.

Take Shaanxi Province for instance, it now cultivates nearly 400,000 hectares of apple trees and its apple output accounts for one fifth of the nation's total.

The Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is the place of origin for Chinese wolfberry and has a cultivation history of more than 500 years. It now produces about 15 million kilograms of the fruit a year, or 40 percent of the country's total, and accounts for half of the country's annual Chinese wolfberry exports.

Though rich in fruit resources, the fruit processing technology and capacity in the western regions, and even the whole country, are still relatively low.

Official statistics show that China's apple processing capacity stands at less than 6 percent of the apple output.

On the other hand, processed fruit products like wines and juices are finding an increasingly expanding market throughout the country.

Economists here point out that due to relatively cheap labor, land price and other factors like water and electricity, the fruit processing industry in the western regions enjoys many advantages over other regions in China and foreign countries, thus promises a bright future.

China is now the world's largest fruit producer with an annual output of 62 million tons, or 13 percent of the world's total. For eight consecutive years, it has topped the world in the production of both apple and pear.

( January 6, 2002)