“Guangdong lychees are very popular and sold out in one cabinet.” Chen Longxing, the president of Longji Planting and Raising Cooperative in Taimei Town, Boluo County, Huizhou, excitedly shared the WeChat voice conversation with Canadian customers late the night before to the participants. On the morning of June 24th, the 2020 Guangdong International Network Litchi Festival Silk Road Promotion Conference was held in Guangzhou, with appointments from the Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, customs departments and exporters, lychee planting companies, logistics processing companies, and relevant institutions in the province. 40 delegates attended the meeting.

By the end of June, the sales of litchi in Guangdong were over half. The people in Guangdong had gone from worrying about the expected market downturn at the beginning of the year to being trembling at the beginning of the sale, and now they are selling more and more vigorously. They are inseparable from the government, enterprises, research and media. One heart and one mind, forge ahead.

Export volume in the first five months increased by 11% year-on-year

New varieties are highly sought after

"Unexpectedly, I am very happy." Chen Yaohua, chairman of Guangdong Zhongli Group, who had just returned from Shantou's lychee base, relayed what he heard the most from fruit farmers in the local area. This year is a harvest year for lychees. Coupled with the impact of the epidemic, many fruit farmers are very worried about the beginning of this year's lychee sales. What they didn't expect was that the price of lychee increased this year instead of falling, and it was relatively stable, and the demand was strong. "As of now, Guangdong Zhongli Group's export volume this year has increased by more than 30% year-on-year."

According to statistics from the Guangdong Branch of the General Administration of Customs, from January to May of this year, the export of registered litchi orchards in Guangdong “breaks through” against the trend, with an export value of 1598.7 tons and a value of 39.425 million yuan, an increase of 11.2% and 7.8% year-on-year. They are mainly exported to the United States, Canada, and Canada. International markets such as Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

In addition to the total growth, the export of litchi this year has also shown a new momentum: excellent and new varieties are particularly popular, and there is a market for high prices. Lin Bo, director of Guangdong Zhongli Group, tasted the sweetness: “We have exported two batches of Guinuoxiang to Canada this year by air. The same batch also has Guiwei. What surprised us is that the new variety Guinuoxiang is more popular than Guiwei. The price is higher."

Chen Yaohua also feels the same. In the past, foreign markets thought that Chinese lychees were of good quality and cheap, but this year is different. "We also tried to promote some new varieties this year, which made our customers shine. It turns out that China also has such good quality lychees, which are high in price and good in the market."

It is worth mentioning that the domestic lychee market has steadily risen this year, which has led to an increase in export prices. However, this did not reduce the purchasing intentions of foreign buyers. "In fact, foreign customers don't want products to drop in price. The more stable the price, the more confident they are. On the contrary, when the price drops, many customers will cut their orders." Chen Yaohua added.

Multi-heads push the boat out to sea

Good price of exported litchi and high benefit

"It feels very good to be a fruit grower this year, and I am very happy!" Chen Longxing said that even if the price of litchi in his cooperative was as high as 200 yuan per box (5 kg pack), it was sold out. Planting lychees according to export standards not only opened up overseas markets, but also forced the cooperative members to change their planting awareness and enter the domestic mid-to-high-end market. He believes that the good price of litchi this year is largely due to the government's efforts.

This year, Guangdong litchi has not been sold first. In April, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Guangdong launched the Guangdong Litchi "12221" Marketing and Guangdong International Network Litchi Festival, to create the "Guangdong Litchi" provincial regional public brand, and launched a series of innovative marketing actions. Guangzhou Tower, large screens in domestic and foreign cities, large and small live broadcast platforms... "I don't want to know Guangdong lychee." A fruit grower from Gaozhou, Maoming said when attending the 2020 China Litchi Industry Conference.

"Strong publicity is very useful to stabilize prices. Good domestic prices will also benefit exports." Chen Yaohua said that this year the company's (Lei Ling) export price of litchi is 30%-50% higher than that of ordinary farmers. His company has been exporting in Leiling, Shantou for 17 years. At the beginning, many fruit growers refused. They felt that the demand was too much and it was troublesome, and they could still be sold in the wholesale market without exporting. But for many years of practice, more and more farmers come to find cooperation, especially this year.

Leiling Town, Shantou City, in the mouth of Chen Yaohua, is the famous "Litchi Township" in Guangdong, where lychees have been grown for more than 500 years. The history is very old, but the lychee production in Leiling is not "old-fashioned". At present, Leiling Town, Shantou City has 23,800 acres of pollution-free lychee production bases at the national and provincial levels, more than half of the total area, 1,000 acres of standardized demonstration area, and 2,000 acres of export production bases. Lei Ling litchi has been exported to the United States for 17 consecutive years.

To export lychees, you first need to obtain the qualification of an export record base at the customs. Since 2019, Guangdong has carried out the review and identification of a new batch of agricultural export demonstration bases. As of January 2020, there are 137 agricultural export demonstration bases in the province. In accordance with international standards, these bases fully implement standardized management in production, processing, storage, circulation and other links, laying a solid foundation for improving the quality and safety of agricultural products in our province and international competitiveness, and playing a good role in demonstration, promotion and driving. Currently, Guangdong Province has 47 registered orchards and 30 packaging factories for exporting litchi.

"I'm only afraid of quality, not sales." Zheng Shuangmei, general manager of Shenzhen Hengdali Industrial Co., Ltd., said that she raised her voice at this time. She said that there are many orders for agricultural exports, but what is helpless is that there are not enough products that meet the standards.

This is also one of the "major tasks" of Guangdong Zhongli Group, which was established in December last year. In the first three-year period, the group plans to build more than 50 export bases in the province, covering more than 100,000 acres of litchi orchards and exporting more than 10,000 tons per year. The Longji Planting Cooperative in Taimei Town, Boluo County, Huizhou is one of the first batch of 20 bases. This year, the cooperative also successfully obtained lychee export approval certification from Shenzhen Customs, becoming the first lychee export certification base in Boluo County. Chen Yaohua expressed the hope that by encouraging more bases to file for export, the quality and brand awareness of growers will be improved, and the high-quality development of the litchi industry will be promoted.

In terms of export customs clearance, Guangdong Customs is also actively creating green channels. In view of the short fresh-keeping period and high quality and safety requirements of exported lychees, Guangdong Customs implements "zero delay", "zero detention" and "zero waiting" customs clearance services, and adopts an appointment method to prioritize inspections to ensure that the goods are inspected and released immediately. . For those who have not been placed under control, the implementation of document review and release, so as to "issue the certificate at the same time as the report", improve the efficiency of customs clearance, and race against time for the export of fresh lychees. In response to the special situation of the epidemic, the customs implemented a "no-face" review mode for newly registered orchards and packaging plants. Under the premise that the company submits a letter of commitment, it adopts a document review and assessment, and greatly shortens the "submission and follow-up review" for eligible orchards and packaging plants. Approval time limit, and promptly recommend to foreign officials.

You Hong, deputy director of the Inspection and Quarantine Office of the Guangdong Branch of the General Administration of Customs, said that it is necessary to strictly abide by international trade rules and focus on the quality and safety of enterprises' litchi export at the source; through strict supervision of the production process, strengthen the control of agricultural inputs and urge the establishment of enterprises The quality and safety management system strengthens the self-inspection and self-control ability to ensure that the exported litchi "sources up to standard"

Promote the domestic and foreign dual cycle

Create a new upsurge in Guangdong's litchi export

“It’s harder to make agricultural products, but it’s even harder to make lychees. It’s even harder to make lychees for export.” Zhuang Lijuan, a professor at the School of Economics and Management of South China Agricultural University, said of the export of lychee. There are not many competitors in the international market, and the market space is huge.

Zhuang Lijuan said that Guangdong's litchi must be continuously competitive in the international market. The focus is not on price competition, but on the competition of the entire industry chain, from the source to the end of the market. "One of the important roles of relevant government departments is to improve the chain. , To ensure that the chain is not dropped in the middle."

The relevant person in charge of Guangzhou SF Express Co., Ltd. Tong Jie suggested that in aviation logistics, relevant departments can open green channels for agricultural products, shorten the time of air transportation, and help solve the problem of short shelf life of agricultural products.

Regarding how to improve the competitiveness of Guangdong’s litchi export, the deputy inspector of the Guangdong Provincial Party School (Guangdong Administration Institute) stated that the development of litchi export requires brand, standard and scale to complement each other. It is very difficult for a small enterprise to make standards and brands. Therefore, a certain amount of capital mergers and acquisitions are needed to cultivate leading enterprises, so as to speed up and improve the speed and degree of standardization.

The statement stated that the advantage of scale can also be reflected in information integration. Through the export alliance, a big data platform is built to allow service providers to understand market distribution and demand in real time, and then better integrate resources for services such as cold chain transportation and reduce costs; sales; Merchants can also focus on marketing and promotion based on the distribution of consumer groups, and make products quickly accepted by the market by outputting product stories.

Tang Hang, the international logistics manager of JD.com, also mentioned the role of big data. He introduced that JD.com is accelerating the global e-commerce layout, especially in the Southeast Asian market, which can help many Chinese products enter the local market. Europe and the United States are also establishing a number of overseas warehouses. "Using big data analysis methods such as business flow and logistics can help Guangdong Litchi accurately analyze overseas target markets, and create explosive products through the joint efforts of government and enterprises, with the help of brand and marketing."

Participants believed that export is of great significance to the litchi industry in Guangdong. It not only raises litchi prices and helps litchi farmers to increase their incomes, but also pushes domestic bases to high-standard production through international standards, promotes high-quality industrial development, and guarantees consumer table safety; The international market is vast, and there is still a great demand for lychees. The new demand will stimulate new domestic production. While exporting has opened up the international market channel for domestic agricultural products, it is an important driving force for the realization of the domestic and foreign dual cycle to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of domestic production, improve product quality, and increase efficiency.

Next, on the basis of consolidating the good results of the early export, the litchi industry in Guangdong should try every means to further promote the export of litchi in Guangdong and create a new upsurge in the export of litchi in Guangdong. Specific efforts need to be made from the following ten aspects: one is to improve the position and strengthen awareness; the second is to cultivate the main body and build alliances; the third is to solve problems and promote development; the fourth is to plan new products and expand the field; the fifth is to establish a base to ensure quality; Sixth is to create standards and build brands; seven is to expand cooperation and form synergy; eight is to make "small cuts" to achieve big breakthroughs; nine is to study and learn from and introduce policies; ten is to build chains and form an ecology.