MAOMING, Guangdong Province: Having reaped a bumper harvest in the "three highs" - high yield, high quality and high efficiency - agriculture development, this city is stepping up to modernize the sector.

The city is redoubling efforts to set up bases for growing agricultural produce, focus more on vegetable production for winter consumption in North China and plant crops that grow in winter, Maoming Mayor Lin Xiong told a recent press conference.

And the city is making better use of its geographical advantage to produce more crops and promote fishing and animal husbandry.

The official said Maoming will focus more on scientific and technological innovation for the sustained development of the "three highs" agriculture.

The city has been making great efforts to introduce and promote better strains of seed and also offer scientific and technological support and training opportunities to local farmers.

"The geographical location is a good plus for Maoming to develop 'three highs' agriculture and the city's endeavours to develop it have paid off," said Lin.

Official statistics showed that the city realized a gross agricultural production output value of 19.06 billion yuan (US$2.30 million) last year, accounting for 13.27 per cent of the total in Guangdong Province and topping other cities in the province.

Citing statistics, the official said, Maoming has become one of the leading suppliers of fruit in China, with their gross production output value reaching 6.75 million yuan (US$813,250) in 2001.

The total area of fruit plantation was 287,333 hectares in 2001, with lychee, longan and bananas the main ones produced.

This year's yield of lychee was 480,000 tons, which accounts for 25 per cent of the nation's total and 20 per cent of the world's total.

Maoming has also become one of the nation's largest bases for the growing of vegetables for winter consumption in the northern regions of China.

The total growing area for these vegetables was 45,933 hectares.

Yields of crops, poultry and husbandry also top other cities in the province.

Lin said the fast development of "three highs" agriculture and the demand for refined processing of agricultural products has helped boost the development of Maoming's township enterprises.