Meeting charts growth path for Guizhou's tea industry

Guizhou's tea industry development conference reveals the tea industry achievements in 2020 and plans for 2021. [Photo/ddcpc.cn]

The tea industry development conference of Southwest China's Guizhou province was held in the provincial capital Guiyang on Feb 24. The conference reported on Guizhou's tea development situation in 2020 and arranged the development plan for 2021.

According to the conference, by the end of 2020, Guizhou had 7 million mu (466,666.67 hectares) of tea gardens, ranking first in China. It had 10 national key tea companies, ranking second nationally, and 260 provincial firms. It also had 384 tea enterprises at the municipal and county levels.

Guizhou's annual tea output volume was 436,000 metric tons in 2020, with an output value of 50.38 billion yuan ($7.81 billion), increasing by 8.7 percent and 11.7 percent year-on-year, respectively.

Guiyang's customs department inspected and quarantined 6,577.7 tons of exported tea worth $231 million, and 3.4 million people in Guizhou were involved in the tea industry with an annual per capita income of 12,351 yuan in 2020.

In 2021, Guizhou aims to build more than 7 million mu of new tea gardens, 6.3 million mu of which should be put into operation by the end of the year. The annual tea output volume will reach 450,000 tons with an output value of 56 billion yuan, and the yearly value of tea exports will exceed $300 million.

Guizhou will focus on the cultivation of tea brands, complete the industrial chain for tea, encourage the development of self-owned brands, promote tea culture, develop tea processing companies, enhance tea marketing, and use technology to help develop the tea industry.