Agricultural products boost incomes for merchants, farmers in Aksu, NW China's Xinjiang

Walking into the fruit industry agricultural product trading center in Aksu Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, one is met with a wide variety of dried fruits, including dried jujubes, walnuts and raisins.

"Our annual net income can exceed 100,000 yuan (about $13,721)," said the owner of a dried fruit store at the trading center, adding that since it was established, business has been getting better every year.

Photo shows various kinds of dried products at the fruit industry agricultural product trading center in Aksu Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (People's Daily/Zhang Yizhao)

Real-time data is displayed on the big data visualization platform. (People's Daily/Zhang Yizhao)

As the largest agricultural product trading market in southern Xinjiang, the place is equipped with supporting facilities for purchasing, processing, and warehousing.

Wang Xiaoming, the person in charge of the Xinjiang Huizong Agricultural and Byproducts Electronic Trading Market, said that through the big data visualization platform, they can dynamically learn about price change indices and grasp market trends, thereby better guiding merchants to adjust their sales plans in a timely manner.

Merchants in the trading center pack dried fruits into boxes and weigh them. (People's Daily Online/Chen Xinhui)

In 2022, Aksu ranked first in Xinjiang in terms of fruit production and output value. The total area of specialty fruit planting reached 4.5 million mu (300,000 hectares), with a fruit production of 2.6 million tonnes and a total output value of 18.2 billion yuan. The income from fruit accounted for about one-third of farmers’ per capita net income.

Wang said that the trading center has directly or indirectly created over 11,000 jobs and boosted the income of more than 7,500 farming households.

The center has several warehouses for cold storage, jujube processing, apple processing, walnut production, and more. It has achieved an annual processing capacity of 150,000 tonnes of agricultural products, an annual cold chain preservation capacity of 100,000 tonnes, and has set a target of trading 1 million tonnes of agricultural products.

A truck loaded with fruits and vegetables enters the trading center. (People's Daily Online/Chen Xinhui)