Photo shows a farmer is harvesting lychees in south China's Guiping in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
BEIJING, July 5 (Xinhua) -- South China's Guiping City in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region held an event recently to celebrate the Chinese farmers' harvest festival and mark the start this year's Guiping lychee festival.
The city has been focusing both on quantity and quality of lychee planting in recent years, following a development path featuring large-scale production, brand development and breeding improvement, said Fang Huihui, vice mayor of Guiping City, at the celebration.
Fang added that the city has implemented breeding improvement in an area of 80,000 mu (about 5,333.33 hectares) and introduced over 20 premium breeds to improve the quality of local lychee.
The Guiping lychee was snapped up during the event. Supermarkets, logistics companies in the autonomous region and beyond signed purchase contracts for 2,500 tonnes of lychees worth 30 million yuan in sales. Sales through online livestreaming amounted to over 200,000 yuan, and offline logistics sales exceeded 800,000 yuan.
Besides, an exhibition on lychee-centered calligraphy and photography was also held to display a special lychee culture in the area.
The Guiping lychee festival lasted for three days to July 2, with various activities combining local characteristics and farming culture held in a main venue and two sub-venues in towns across the city.
Dubbed the "hometown of lychees", Guiping city's lychee planting area has exceeded 200,000 mu (about 13,333.3 hectares), with an annual output of over 50,000 tonnes and an output value of over 600 million yuan (about 82.88 million U.S. dollars).
(Edited by Li Shimeng with Xinhua Silk Road, lishimeng@xinhua.org)
A single purchase
