The Sichuan Juhe Agricultural Development Co Ltd is building an international trading center in the Longquan national economic and technological development zone in Chengdu, the capital city of Southwest China's Sichuan Province.

The center will receive total investment of 365 million yuan (US$44.1 million). It will cover logistics facilities such as storage, packaging, deliveries, quarantine and quality inspection and electronic commerce as well as exhibition and trading areas, said Yang Ling, its general manager.

She said the Sichuan firm is seeking to solve the logistics bottleneck in China's fruit industry by setting up the center.

The firm has also established long-term partnerships with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Sichuan Agriculture University and other institutes to research and develop advanced and new technologies, she said.

China is the world's largest fruit producer. Its yield of 60 million tons last year represented 14 percent of the world's total fruit output.

Fruit is the third-largest sector of agriculture in China, only smaller than grain and vegetables, and is an important part of the national economy.

But the Chinese fruit industry is not very competitive due to its dispersed retail system, low application of technology and bad management, said Meng Hesu, secretary-general of the China Food Association.

China exported only 160,000 tons of fruit last year, accounting for about 3 percent of the world's total exports.

The average price of Chinese fruit is only 40 percent of United States fruit and 20 percent of Japanese fruit.

On the other hand, foreign fruit being imported into China has an increasing competitive edge due to the tariff cuts that China agreed to when it joined the World Trade Organization in December 2001.

(China Daily April 16, 2003)