National Agricultural Product Market System Plan Released, About 100 Backbone Markets to Be Built
Yesterday, the website of the Ministry of Commerce published an article stating that the Ministry of Commerce and 10 other departments recently jointly issued the "National Agricultural Product Market System Development Plan", proposing that a agricultural product market system with Chinese characteristics will be initially established by 2020.
Based on factors such as the economic and social conditions, transportation locations, population distribution, and agricultural product circulation foundations of various regions in China, combined with national strategic deployments such as the “Belt and Road” initiative, the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development, as well as the distribution of major national commercial functional zones and advantageous agricultural product production and marketing areas, the plan lays out about 100 national backbone agricultural product wholesale markets and 8 market clusters in areas concentrated in national agricultural product production, distribution, and consumption. Relying on the market clusters, it forms a “three vertical and three horizontal” national backbone network for agricultural product circulation, which connects with regional agricultural product circulation networks.
To ensure smooth implementation, the plan proposes measures in 6 aspects, including establishing and improving the laws, regulations, and standards system, reforming and innovating investment and financing methods, improving the mechanism for guaranteeing construction land, reducing the tax and fee burden on enterprises, and giving play to the role of industry associations.
One of the highlights of the plan is that, for the first time, based on factors such as industrial resource endowments, population distribution, and consumption capacity, and combined with the national agricultural product market system planning layout, it proposes planning and building a group of national public-benefit agricultural product wholesale markets as well as regional public-benefit agricultural product wholesale markets and retail outlets, forming a public-benefit agricultural product market circulation network composed jointly of wholesale markets and retail outlets.
A relevant official of the Ministry of Commerce stated that the release of the "Plan" will help optimize the layout of the agricultural product circulation network; improve the efficiency of agricultural product circulation; promote agricultural development and increase farmers' income; raise the level of public services; coordinate the development of both international and domestic markets, and enhance the competitiveness of the agricultural product circulation industry.