（Press conference of the report on development of China's banana industry）
BEIJING, May 18 (Xinhua) -- China Economic Information Service (CEIS) of Xinhua News Agency on Tuesday released a report on development of the domestic banana industry jointly with the People's Government of Chengmai County of Hainan Province.
The report predicts that in 2018, China's banana planting area and production output will fall year on year.
According to the report, although China is a big producer of banana, it is not a banana trade power. The international competitiveness of China's banana industry is relatively weak and there is room for improvement. In 2016, the international market share (MS), the trade competitiveness index (TC) and the revealed comparative advantage of China's bananas ranked 43rd, 73rd, and 77th, respectively, in the world.
The report points out that the industrialization of deep processing of the domestic banana industry is relatively low and it has not yet achieved breakthroughs in key technologies for the banana industrial production. Compared to a variety of foreign banana products, such as banana flour, banana sauce and banana wine, China’s banana processing enterprises are relatively junior, with product shortages.
In 2018, the national banana market supplies will be reduced, with the market price expected to be higher than the previous three years. The area of special banana plantation shall be gradually increased. The brand awareness in the banana industry should be strengthened, said Ke Youpeng, head of the Hainan Research Institute of Tropical Agriculture and Rural Economy.
Hainan is one of the five major banana growing areas in China. The report shows that in 2016, the banana planting area in Hainan Province was approximately 35,300 hectares and the Province produced approximately 1.26 million metric tons (tonnes) of banana, with the output value reaching 3.896 billion yuan. In 2017, cost-profit ratio of the banana planters in Hainan was 13.2 percent, down 46.2 percentage points year on year. (Edited by Hu Pingchao, hupingchao@xinhua.org)
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