FIVE YEARS ON

AGRICULTURE

“Ningxia’s wine region is different from other places, because it is internationally well known, besides being popular in the domestic market,” she said.

The region’s Cabernet Sauvignon Luxury Reserve Dry Red Wine 2013 won the 2017 silver medal again at the Concours Mondial de Bruselles, she said.

During his tour of Ningxia in July 2016, President Xi Jinping said that Ningxia’s winery industry has huge market potential.

Ningxia is already exploring comprehensive development of the winery industry. It should continue to do so, he said.

Since 2012, when the 18th National Congress of the CPC was held in Beijing, Ningxia has begun to implement an ambitious grape industry development plan in the East Foothills region of Helan Mountain.

The plan is to build three wine-making cities, 10 grapethemed tourism townships, more than 100 winery chateaus, 66,667 hectares of grape-growing farmland, thus generating a comprehensive annual output value of at least 100 billion yuan ($15 billion)

The winery industry has provided 12,000 jobs for local farmers . . .” Shao Qingsong,

by 2020, Li said.

As the venue of the biennial China-Arab States Expo, Yinchuan, capital city of Ningxia, has become “a new name card” for China’s opening-up, as the Belt and Road Initiative is being pushed forward on a comprehensive scale, said Foreign Minister Wang Yi, while addressing an event organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to attract business and investment to Ningxia last year.

Ningxia abounds with fertile plains that are perfect for agriculture. According to officials of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, typical produce includes wolfberry, liquorice, halal beef and lamb. And now, it wants the wine industry to become an economic backbone, the engine for its growth.

So far, Ningxia has devoted nearly 44,000 hectares of farmland for grape production, of which 38,000 hectares are wine-brewing grape fields, said Shao Qingsong, general