The opening ceremony of the conference.

Leaders and distinguished guests attending the opening ceremony included: Liu Yang, vice governor of Hunan Province; Wan Guangming, vice governor of Jiangxi Province; Muheyati Jarmuhammat, vice chairperson of the People's Government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region; Liu Pingzhi, member of the leading Party members group of the Hainan Provincial People's Government; Bai Lianyang, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; Nazgul Khatepova, vice minister of Agriculture of Kazakhstan; Zhao Bing, representative and country director of World Food Programme (WFP) China Office; Chen Junsheng, deputy director of the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration; and, Wang Wei'an, secretary general of the People's Government of Hunan Province. Also present at the ceremony were envoys and representatives from various countries, regions, and international organizations in China.

Mao Weiming and Liu Huanxin meet with the guests attending the conference.

On behalf of the provincial Party committee and the provincial government, Governor Mao extended sincere welcome to all guests who came to Hunan to discuss major issues of food security and grain cooperation. He said that in recent years, Hunan has thoroughly implemented President Xi Jinping's important expositions on national food security, always placing a high priority on food security. The province has been focusing on stabilizing production, ensuring reserves, strengthening industry, and improving services, with grain harvests increasing year after year, storage capacity enhanced continuously, and innovative achievements emerging steadily. Last year, the province's total grain output and per-unit yield both hit record highs, with total grain output exceeding 62 billion jin (approximately 31 million tonnes) and remaining above 60 billion jin for six consecutive years. The "Xizi No. 3" low-cadmium accumulation rice was shortlisted for the three iconic sci-tech achievements in the agricultural sector during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, and "Huxiang Quality Seeds" have taken root and thrived globally, demonstrating Hunan's responsibility as a major grain production hub.

As an important platform for exchange, mutual learning, and win-win cooperation in China's grain industry, this year's conference in Hunan will surely open a "new window" for industry learning, offer a "new channel" for production and marketing connection, and explore "new scenarios" for coordinated development, highlighting advantages of integration through this "grain trading event."

 
Hunan will take this conference as a new starting point, firmly uphold the bottom line of supply security without slackening, keep deepening production and marketing integration, further accelerate industrial upgrading, strengthen open cooperation, and jointly safeguard global food security by "prospering grain production and reserves."

Mao Weiming and Liu Huanxin inspect the exhibition hall together.

In his speech, Liu Huanxin pointed out that since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012, the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping at its core has consistently prioritized food security for the population of over one billion, implementing the national food security strategy and blazing a path with Chinese characteristics. As a major grain-producing region, Hunan has comprehensively consolidated its food security foundation in recent years, creating a robust framework featuring all-out efforts across the entire chain and coordinated capacity building.

 
At the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, hosting the 8th China Grain Trading Conference in Hunan is timely and significant. Liu called on all parties to seize this opportunity to deepen production-marketing linkages, and continue to enhance the full chain of grain production, procurement, storage, processing, and distribution, to demonstrate new achievements in boosting grain circulation; strengthen grain scientific and technological innovation, accelerate the intelligent and green transformation of the grain industry, and boost collaborative innovation among industry, academia, research, and application, to achieve new breakthroughs in cultivating new quality productive forces; actively participate in consumption-based assistance to help people lifted out of poverty increase their incomes and foster the endogenous development momentum in poverty-alleviated areas; and, strengthen exchanges and mutual learning, facilitate trade and industry exchanges, to build greater resilience in food security through open cooperation.

After the opening ceremony, Mao Weiming and Liu Huanxin inspected 13 special exhibition areas, including the Hunan special booth exhibition area, the consumption assistance zone for areas lifted out of poverty, and the grain and oil machinery and equipment exhibition area.

On the evening of September 4, Mao Weiming and Liu Huanxin met with representatives attending the conference.
  
Themed "Ensuring Food Security with Collective Efforts, Promoting Integration of Production and Sales for Development," this conference features six major sections, including an exhibition of high-quality products and technical equipment and an investment promotion and contract signing event. It brings together more than 3,100 enterprises, with an expected attendance of over 60,000 visits.

This article is from Hunan Provincial Government. www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Pang Yuehui

Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn