Hunan Tea Industry: Profitable for 6 Consecutive Years

　　After Qingming Festival, Changsha’s tea market ushered in the first peak of sales in 2017.

　　A conference of Hunan’s tea production bases was held recently. It announced that Hunan saw an all-round development for tea production industry last year. The area of tea plantations across the province reached 2.15 million mu (0.144 million ha.), making an annual output of 232,000 tons, and realizing an output value of 64.8 billion yuan. Tea industry has been profitable for six consecutive years. A sound situation for the sustainable development of the industry has been made, with higher efficiency for tea producers, more income for farmers, and more tax revenue for the provincial finance.

　　Hunan’s tea industry in last year, concentrating on improving the quality and returns of development, adhered to the guideline of supply-side structural reform to adapt to the new normal in economic development. A series of measures has been conducted, including building high quality tea bases, and developing organic tea products, to boost transformation and upgrading of the sector.

　　As for now, Hunan covers an area of 105,000 mu (7035 ha.) of tea plantations that have met the domestic and international standards for organic food, such as the Switzerland Organic Certification Body (IMO), the National Organic Program (NOP) of USA, Japanese Agricultural Standard for the Production of Organic Foodstuffs (JAS), European Union EEC Standard, and the standards of the Organic Food Development Center of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China.