Beijing looks to Weifang to fill food consumption needs

A batch of Beijing companies have shown interest in Weifang, the country’s leading city for food exports, with a view to procuring products from the city to cater to growing consumer demand in the Chinese capital.

Weifang is situated in East China’s Shandong province, just six hours drive from Beijing. 

The city's chicken and meat exports account for one-third of the country’s total and its vegetable exports make up one-10th. 

Weifang's food products have been exported to 20 countries and regions including the United States, Japan, Republic of Korea, European Union, Singapore and Hong Kong.

In July, more than 150 Weifang companies exhibited more than 350 different products at Wumart supermarket’s Lenovo Bridge Branch in Beijing’s Haidian district, and promoted Weifang’s China Food Valley, which is a dedicated food production area in the city. 

The promotion will last until December.

Wang Haotian, deputy director of Weifang commerce bureau, said the city has strengthened its food quality supervisions.

According to Wang, the city's ecologically qualified vegetable production land has hit 3,600 square kilometers.

In addition, the city's annual food production has hit 5 million tons, with vegetables comprising 1.2 million tons, meat 1.4 million tons and seafood 600,000 tons.

"To date, we have built five national-level agricultural product export centers and three provincial-level ones and three are now applying to become a national-level export centers," he said.

Wei Xinyu, an official with the Beijing Commerce Bureau, said the city welcomes quality food products due to its rising demand for food.

Statistics indicate that Beijing has a population of 22 million and its population consumes 35,000 tons of vegetables, 800 tons of eggs, 2,700 tons of rice and 3,200 tons of flour daily.

Spending on food production will also need to keep pace with the city’s growing population.

In addition, Weifang is committed to the China Food Valley project, which has an area of nearly 60 sq km and an investment of up to 1 billion yuan ($149.9 million).

"We will build a company to promote the China Food Valley brand and attract investors from the Netherlands, Israel, the US and Australia," said Yu Dongju, coordination director of China Food Valley.

She said more investment in research as well as additional funds of up to 4 billion yuan will be injected into the valley.

She also anticipates that more social capital will be channeled into international cooperation projects.