“As the protection and sowing of rice have been unmanned at present, we will improve the standardization and intelligence of agriculture and promote the unmanned transplanting and harvesting.” Chen Yaolong, chairman of Guangxi Hengbaofeng Agricultural Development Co., Ltd., said in an interview recently. In order to further promote the unmanned transplanting of rice seedlings, the rice seedling greenhouses in the Cambodia-China (Guangxi) Agricultural Cooperation Demonstration Zone will start construction this month.

In recent years, Guangxi has continuously expanded new areas of agricultural cooperation with ASEAN countries.

According to reports, Guangxi authorities have adopted the mode of “aided construction+operation” to support Guangxi agricultural enterprises and research institutes to build the China (Guangxi)-ASEAN experimental station for excellent crop varieties abroad. The Cambodia-China (Guangxi) Agricultural Cooperation Demonstration Zone constructed by Guangxi Hengbaofeng Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. in Cambodia is one of the experimental stations.

According to Chen Yaolong, the company has introduced more than 20 high-quality rice varieties from China to Bale Park for the past three years. After screening, “Yexiangyou” series hybrid rice was finally selected as the variety to be planted in Cambodia. After rice production experiments, the average yield of this variety reached 6 tons per hectare in 2022. It is well accepted by local farmers and rice dealers in terms of yield, appearance and taste and exported to EU countries.

Chen Yaolong is very optimistic about Guangxi’s agricultural cooperation prospects in ASEAN. “The alluvial plains in Southeast Asia, especially in countries through which the Mekong River runs have flat terrain and fertile land, which are very suitable for planting crops and have great advantages in investing in agriculture;” he said.

At present, Guangxi has built five overseas experimental stations in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Myanmar, exported more than 750 new vegetable and rice varieties, with a cumulative demonstration and promotion area of more than 4 million mu, and trained more than 1,000 agricultural technicians for the countries where the project has been implemented.

The Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Guangxi introduced that over the years, Guangxi has taken the China-ASEAN Expo as an opportunity to innovate and serve agricultural exchanges and cooperation relying on the agricultural exhibition platform, continuously deepen and expand the “circle of friends” and provide vigorous support to export-oriented enterprises.

In recent years, Guangxi has successively built nine overseas agricultural cooperation demonstration zones in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Mauritania, and constructed four agricultural opening-up cooperation pilot zones in Baise, Pingxiang, Dongxing and Yongfu, so as to promote Guangxi agricultural enterprises to “go global” in groups. At present, there are 67 registered agricultural enterprises in Guangxi going global, with an agreed investment of US$4 billion.

In order to promote the development of export-oriented agriculture, Guangxi has given full play to its regional advantages, prepared “three lists” (the list of RCEP zero-tariff commodities exported by Guangxi, the list of RCEP zero-tariff commodities imported by Guangxi, and the list of goods with reduced taxes in Guangxi’s advantageous industries), continuously guided and supported agricultural enterprises to build 46 demonstration bases for Guangxi’s agricultural products export, and continuously improved the quality and safety level of Guangxi’s export agricultural products and brand competitiveness abroad.

Since the beginning of this year, Guangxi has organized government and agricultural enterprise delegations to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei and other ASEAN countries, as well as the United States, Italy and other European and American countries to carry out agricultural docking activities, resulting in four agricultural investment cooperation projects with a total investment of over CNY 2.8 billion, and a total of six agricultural products import and export trade cooperation projects with a contract amount of approximately CNY 9.2 billion.

According to statistics, in the first half of this year, the total import and export trade of agricultural products in Guangxi was CNY 35.338 billion, a year-on-year increase of 35.05%. The total import and export trade of agricultural products between Guangxi and RCEP countries reached CNY 13.62 billion, a year-on-year increase of 37.81%.