On 12 September 2016, the First China-ASEAN Agricultural Cooperation Forum was held in Nanning, Guangxi Province. With the theme of “Deepening Innovative Agricultural Cooperation, Co-Building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road”, the Forum was co-hosted by China’s Ministry of Agriculture and the Government of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Delegates from the agriculture-related government sectors, international organizations, business circle, media, etc, including Mr. Zhang Xiulong, Vice Governor of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Mr. Qu Dongyu, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture of China and Mr. Aye Ko Ko, Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock of Myanmar attended the Forum.
H.E. Mme. Yang Xiuping, Secretary-General of ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) attended the Forum upon invitation and delivered a speech.
Vice Governor Zhang Xiulong said that as a big agriculture province of China, Guangxi had been striving for enhancing agriculture cooperation with ASEAN. The trade volume of agriculture products between Guangxi and ASEAN countries reached 2.03 billion USD in 2015, 10.5 times as of the year 2002, with an average annual increase of 19.8%. China-ASEAN agricultural cooperation had great potential and faced broad prospect. He hoped that the two sides could work together to build agriculture information sharing platform, make innovative efforts for agricultural cooperation and promote the cooperation in the areas of agricultural technology, varieties, facilities and international trade.
Vice Minister Qu Dongyu said that both China and ASEAN were at the critical juncture for development. We all faced the important tasks of developing agriculture and improving people’s livings. China would like to work with ASEAN, to make joint efforts to realize common and sustainable development. He made four suggestions. First, attaching importance to agriculture capacity building. Second, making efforts to build international agricultural parks. Third, enhancing policy coordination among agriculture related government sectors. Fourth, promoting international trade for agricultural products through e-commerce.
Secretary-General Yang Xiuping remarked that agriculture was an important component of ASEAN-China cooperation. China and most ASEAN countries were agriculture countries. The two sides had their own advantages in agriculture, and could be complimentary to each other. Strengthening agricultural cooperation is in consistence with the common interests of all parties and their long-term development. The two sides should make joint efforts from the following respects to promote agriculture cooperation. First, we should enhance policy coordination and matching. Second, we should promote agricultural capacity cooperation in the areas of agriculture science and technology, agriculture management and rural renewable energy. Third, we should attach importance to collaborative training of agriculture talents, to lay a solid foundation for the future development of agriculture cooperation.
Deputy Director General Aye Ko Ko said, agriculture was an eternal career for human kind. It was the common responsibility of both ASEAN and China to promote the sustainable development of agriculture of this region. ASEAN highly valued China’s efforts in promoting regional social, economic and culture development, and would like to make joint efforts with China to push the agricultural cooperation to a new height, by making good use of the mechanisms and strengthening technical innovation.
The delegates exchanged views extensively on the opportunities and challenges of ASEAN-China agricultural cooperation and how to promote the sustainable development of regional agriculture.
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