The 28th Fusong Changbai Mountain Ginseng Festival and the ninth King of Ginseng Contest kicked off in the Changbai Mountain ginseng market in Wanliang town, Fusong county, Jilin province, on Sept 6, during which the traditional custom of boiling ginseng with other ingredients was also held.

The festival was jointly organized by the Fusong Ginseng Industrial Development Center, Wanliang township government, Fusong Changbai Mountain Ginseng Market Investment Development Co and Fusong Ginseng Culture Research Society.

The festival attracted not only numerous local ginseng farmers, but merchants, ginseng culture inheritors, and collectors all over the country for participation and bidding.

After professional accreditation of senior experts, on-site grading and notarization by notaries, a 20-year-old planted ginseng weighing 1,370 grams and an over 100-year-old wild ginseng weighing 35 grams were selected as the "King of Planted Ginseng" and "King of Wild Ginseng" at the contest, respectively. The "King of Wild Ginseng" was auctioned at a price of 1.1 million yuan ($178,911).

As a leading ginseng enterprise and the only ginseng distributing center around the country, Wanliang Changhai Mountain Ginseng Market is experiencing a transformation in its logistics model. Nowadays, informationization development promotes the upgrading of logistics by gathering and stimulating the ginseng trade of surrounding areas, such as Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Yanbian, with a sales network spreading over more than 30 counties and regions. Therefore, the Wanliang Changhai Mountain Ginseng Market is rated as one of the "100 powerful enterprises and 100 growing enterprises" in China. The price of ginseng in Wanliang market has become a "barometer" of market price for ginseng all over the country and even the world.

The Wanliang ginseng market has completed construction of a national traditional Chinese medicinal materials circulation tracing system to realize trading tracing based on the market access system. It has also improved the market trading platform, providing better financial services for enterprises specializing in ginseng operations.

Edited by Zhou Yuanyuan and Michael Thai