Chinese Province Becomes Key Strategic Quality Tobacco Production Base

Source from:  TobaccoChina Online 01/10/2011

Southwest China's Sichuan Province - which emerged as the third largest tobacco-producing region in China in 2009 - has basically become a key national-level strategic high-quality leaf tobacco production base in the country, after the province harvested 4.22 million dan (211,000 tons) of leaf tobacco in the year 2010. Latest data released by Sichuan Province Tobacco Office indicated that in 2010, Sichuan Province continued to rank the third in China in terms of the annual leaf tobacco production capacity, and that the total income earned by tobacco growers across the province in the year reached 3 billion yuan (448 million U.S. dollars), with the average amount earned by each tobacco-growing farm household standing at 24,000 yuan (3,600 U.S. dollars). As a result, Sichuan Province has well fulfilled all its leaf tobacco production quotas issued by the State for the 2006-2010 five-year period. Because of the fine performance, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) - the regulator of China's tobacco industry - has recognized Sichuan as a key national-level high-quality leaf tobacco production base basically. The year 2010 was a period in which Sichuan Province invested the largest ever amount of funds in the construction of infrastructure facilities for tobacco production, in which the construction of infrastructure facilities for tobacco production in Sichuan reached a greatest ever scope, and in which the projects of construction of infrastructure facilities for tobacco production in the province amounted to the largest ever number. In 2010, Sichuan Province allocated some 1.5 billion yuan (224 million U.S. dollars) in completing the construction of 65,000 projects of infrastructure facilities for tobacco production in the province, including 23,000 support irrigation projects for tobacco production covering more than 780,000 mu (52,000 hectares) of tobacco fields, in newly building or technologically transforming more than 10,000 curing barns, in newly building more than 1,000 kilograms of tractor roads, in purchasing 28,000 sets or units of farm equipment, and in newly building more than 3,000 greenhouses for developing tobacco seedlings. In the year, Sichuan Province managed to deepen scientific-technological innovation for tobacco production, keeping improving the quality of leaf tobacco. Sichuan Provincial Tobacco Monopoly Administration, which doubles as the provincial tobacco company, cooperated with Shanghai Tobacco Group in launching feasibility studies for establishing bases for producing high-quality Chinese-style leaf tobacco with unique characteristics in the cities or prefectures of Liangshan, Panzhihua, Luzhou, Guangyuan, etc, and signed a technological cooperation agreement with the Tobacco Research Board of Zimbabwe, opening up a new channel for international cooperation. In 2010, the rate of crop rotation of tobacco fields across Sichuan Province reached 88.1 percent, and the rate of floating development of tobacco seedlings in the province reached 100 percent for the first time ever. In the year, the province stepped up efforts for demonstrating the development of new and fine tobacco varieties, with the rate of growing of the Red Flower Great Gold Coin as a fine tobacco variety with unique characteristics reaching 28 percent, and with the rate of growing of South Sichuan China Tobacco 103 topping 20 percent. Also in the year, Sichuan Province succeeded in further promoting its leaf tobacco curing technologies, with the up-to-standard rate of leaf tobacco of all grades purchased in the province topping 80 percent, with the proportion of high-grade leaf tobacco purchased topping 44 percent, and with the proportion of orange color leaf tobacco purchased reaching newly 76 percent. Enditem