China Becomes World's Largest Fruit GrowerChina has become the world's largest fruit growing country, yielding 59 million tons of fruit from 8.4 million hectares of orchards annually, which accounted for 13.4 percent of the world's total fruit output and 21 percent of the world's orchard acreage.However, the country's per unit fruit harvest only stands for 66 percent of the world's averaged level. China's per-capita fruit output is about 47 kilograms, which is far less than the world's average of 75 kilograms, according to a national fruit symposium recently. Experts at the meeting pointed out that despite the large output, there are still a number of problems in the industry, including small quantity of exports and an unscientific product mix. Figures available from the meeting said that as the world's largest fruit grower, China exported only 1.5 percent of its produce to the international market, or 580,000 tons in 1998. Apples are the country's No. 1 export fruit with exports reaching 170,000 tons in 1998. The export volume is just about 22 percent of those exported by France in the same year. About 40 percent of orchards in China are for growing apple. The country also has the world's largest pear growing acreage, accounting for 69 percent of the world's total. |
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