<strong>China: County Tobacco Subcompany Promotes Service Provision by Cooperatives</strong>

Source from:  Qujing Tobacco Monopoly Administration 05/03/2013

Shizong County Tobacco Subcompany in Qujing City of southwest China's tobacco-producing Yunnan Province has been striving to further promote standardization and specialization of the specialized cooperatives of tobacco growers in the county so far this year, to enable them to enhance their capacity of serving members and promote their service provision to higher levels.

The county tobacco subcompany has taken steps to enhance the quality and capacity of members of the specialized cooperatives of tobacco growers in the county, improve the mechanism for grading the performance of the cooperatives, and promote both the management and service provision capacity of the cooperatives to higher levels.

Firstly, the tobacco subcompany has managed to accurately determine the orientation of development of the specialized cooperatives of tobacco growers in the county. Specifically, it has defined the cooperatives as economic entities of autonomous organizations of tobacco growers. Through improvement and promotion of such specialized services as tobacco seedlings development, tractor-plowing, crop protection, leaf tobacco curing and leaf tobacco grading, the tobacco subcompany has assisted the cooperatives in actively extending service provision at such processes as tobacco seedlings transplantation, fertilization, harvest and transportation, and striving to develop systems of specialized service in the whole process of leaf tobacco production.

Secondly, the tobacco subcompany has managed to quantize the scope of service by specialized cooperatives of tobacco growers in the county. In this respect, it has specified the roles of the cooperatives in launching large-scale contiguous growing of leaf tobacco, stabilizing zoning of tobacco growing and training professional tobacco growers, and has provided for the acreage of service of and admission of members into comprehensive service-oriented cooperatives.

And thirdly, the tobacco subcompany has managed to gradually promote the operation and management capacities of the cooperatives. Specifically, it has taken steps to lead the cooperatives to make a comprehensive use of profitable assets formed with tobacco subsidies and launch business diversification. It has also managed to lead the cooperatives to assume part of the service obligations of leaf tobacco stations operated by the government, and undertake the construction of some projects, to strengthen their economic capacity. Enditem