Three Major Areas of Agricultural Product Circulation Will Accelerate the Attraction of Foreign Investment
Huang Hai, former Assistant Minister of Commerce, recently disclosed that China's agricultural product circulation sector will step up its opening to the outside world, guiding foreign capital, technology and advanced management experience toward three key areas: collection and distribution centers at agricultural production sites, pre-cooling facilities at production-site wholesale markets, agricultural product cold-chain transport equipment, and ambient-temperature fresh-keeping warehouses and low-temperature pre-cooling warehouses at agricultural product wholesale markets in distribution centers and consumption areas.
Speaking at the recently held "Sixth Asia-Pacific Wholesale Market Conference and the 30th Anniversary Celebration of the Development of China's Agricultural Product Wholesale Markets," Huang Hai said that more than 90% of China's logistics enterprises are small and medium-sized enterprises, and market homogenization competition is severe. Third-party logistics accounts for less than 25% of the logistics market, while in countries such as the United States and Japan it exceeds 75%. The construction of public logistics information platforms lags behind, and the level of informatization management is not high. Cold-chain transport facilities for agricultural products are lacking, and phenomena such as rotting and spoilage occur from time to time. The "last mile" problem is prominent: the connections between supply and demand, between vehicles and goods, and between goods and warehouses are not smooth, and the empty-running rate of vehicles is as high as 30% to 80%, which is 3 to 8 times that of European and American countries. Therefore, China will strive to create an "upgraded version" of agricultural product wholesale markets, and agricultural product markets will shift from traditionally organizing agricultural product transactions to guiding production and promoting consumption; from traditionally realizing the value of agricultural products to extending the industrial chain and increasing added value; and from traditionally meeting market demand to discovering demand and creating demand.
According to Huang Hai, in addition to actively absorbing foreign investment, various regions are adopting various methods to explore the construction of agricultural product markets. For cross-regional circulation infrastructure construction, the main approach is fiscal interest subsidies on loans, while also encouraging government equity investment in large-scale agricultural product circulation infrastructure by referencing the support methods for public-benefit agricultural product wholesale markets. Fiscal funds are mainly used to support the construction of agricultural product cold-chain logistics distribution centers, comprehensive processing and distribution centers and production-site collection and distribution centers with centralized procurement and cross-regional distribution capabilities; to develop agricultural product e-commerce and promote the coordinated development of agricultural product production and marketing with supply chains, the Internet of Things and the Internet; and to establish provincial-level public information platforms integrating production, supply and marketing, among others.
It is understood that the Sixth Asia-Pacific Wholesale Market Conference was held in Beijing by the Asia-Pacific Regional Working Group of the World Union of Wholesale Markets and the China National Federation of Urban Agricultural Trade Centers, and the theme of this conference was "The Future Direction of Asia-Pacific Wholesale Markets."