Int'l agricultural firms eye western Chinese market

CHENGDU, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- Taourghist Abdessamad, head of a hypermarket called "XTRA" in Morocco, was excited about the richness of agricultural products at the 9th Sichuan Agricultural Expo, which concluded Monday in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.

"I thought I could only purchase some basic agricultural products such as wheat and soybeans, but I saw so many agricultural commodities here. I have been most interested in the local green tea, and I am planning to contact a Chinese tea company to buy some samples and take them back to my country," he said.

The expo was held from October 27 to 30 with an exhibition area of 140,000 square meters, attracting 3,000 enterprises from China and many foreign countries. Representatives from foreign enterprises actively sought cooperation with Chinese agricultural enterprises.

According to the organizer, foreign countries, including the United Kingdom, Nepal, the Republic of Korea, Pakistan, and Italy, held various special activities during the exhibition. Many foreign representatives attending the expo showed great interest in the agricultural products market in China's western regions.

At the expo, Kulager Abdecho Degaga from Ethiopia introduced coffee beans from his hometown and made coffee for visitors to taste.

"My company has been trading with Chinese companies for over a decade. In the past, we mainly imported agricultural machinery from Shandong Province to African countries. After getting familiar with the situation in China, I discovered that an increasing number of young Chinese people like to drink coffee. In 2016, we began to export Ethiopian coffee and sesame to China. Last year, our sales reached 150,000 U.S. dollars," he said.

This year, a special "Belt and Road" agricultural cooperation pavilion was set up at the expo, which aims to promote exchanges and cooperation between enterprises from "Belt and Road" partner countries in the field of agriculture, including agricultural industry and the import and export of agricultural products.

At the Pakistan National Pavilion (Pakistan is the guest of honor of the expo), He Xiaoyan, head of an international trade company in Sichuan, inspected more than a dozen kinds of rice displayed by Pakistan AMIR Rice Import &Export Company.

"I used to run a foreign trade business in northeast China, and this year, I moved my company to Chengdu," He said. "The agricultural resources in western China are rich, and the agricultural product market in Sichuan has good prospects. Besides, the China-Europe freight trains here could reach many "Belt and Road" partner countries, which is very convenient. It's a strong driving force for agricultural product imports and exports in the western region of China."

Chinese enterprises hope to boost the sales of their agricultural products in the international market via the expo.

Cui Bingqian, deputy general manager of Zhejiang Beilai Chaxiang Biotechnology Co., Ltd., said that to seize the opportunities brought by the Belt and Road Initiative, the company that once only sold traditional tea has begun to invest more on product research and development.

This year, they have launched a new product -- freeze-dried tea for the international market, said Cui.