Inner Mongolia promotes China-Mongolia-Russia food trade

North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region has worked to promote food trade among China, Mongolia and Russia by optimizing the port business environment and reforming inspection and supervision mechanisms.

The efforts have paid off. According to the latest statistics, in the first four months of this year, a total of 3,461 batches of food worth $76.5 million were imported from and exported to Mongolia and Russia via Hohhot Customs, an increase of 31.9 percent year-on-year.

In April, the designated supervision site for imported meat at Mandula Port was launched as approved by the General Administration of Customs, the second site of its kind following the one in Ereenhot Port. In addition, preparatory work for safely importing live sheep from Mongolia is moving forward in an orderly manner.

Deep processing of imported goods is also an important matter. There are now up to 25 registered firms in the autonomous region conducting foreign cooperation in agriculture involving 105 projects and an overseas planting area measuring 1.44 million hectares.

Major agricultural products imported from Russia include rapeseeds, flaxseeds, sunflower seeds, wheat, oats, and buckwheat and rapeseed; others from Mongolia are wheat, barley and milk thistle seeds.

With vast land, Inner Mongolia is a large agricultural region. Agricultural products exported from the region are competitive and popular in international markets. In the first four months of this year, agricultural products worth 2.5 billion yuan ($356.74 million) were exported to Mongolia and Russia, up by 13.1 percent year-on-year.

Furthermore, a green channel for agricultural products opened on Sept 20, 2018 between Ereenhot land port and Zamyn Uud land port in Mongolia, ensuring quick delivery of fresh fruits and vegetables. The launch of the channel is also a measure of the local government's support for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).