After two years of negotiations, rice grown in Taiwan has finally passed Beijing’s quarantine requirements and been given the greenlight for export to China, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said yesterday.
The council’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Bureau said it began negotiating with China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine in late 2010, and that after having an inspection team from China visit Taiwan’s rice production region this month, the two sides reached an agreement.
The two sides agreed that a management standard for rice processing factories must be registered at the council’s Agriculture and Food Agency, while the rice must be inspected and certified by the bureau before it can be exported, the council said.
In recent years, China has become Taiwan’s second-largest export market for agricultural products, the council said, adding that the maximum amount of rice exported to China for the second half of this year would be 50,000 tonnes, though adjustments would be made according to circumstances.
Maintaining an adequate supply to meet Taiwan’s domestic demand for rice would still be the first priority, the council added.
Saying that the nation produces high-quality rice, the council added that it would work to help Taiwanese farmers strengthen their branding and marketing strategies in an effort to differentiate products from Taiwan from their lower-priced counterparts on the Chinese market.
In related developments, the Kaohsuing District Agricultural Research and Extension Station said a Japanese rice company yesterday signed a contract to procure 500 tonnes of rice strain Rice Kaohsiung No. 145 this year.
Station director Huang Te-chang (黃德昌) said the strain was cultivated and promoted by the station in 2004 and has won many quality competitions.
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