There was an unusual decline in exports of farm produce in the first quarter of 2015 in East China's Shandong province, which is the country's main agricultural region. It has been China's biggest exporter of agricultural produce for 16 consecutive years.
The exports were 4.3% lower than last year, falling to $11 billion, revealed customs authorities in Shandong port city of Qingdao on Tuesday. The fall was attributed to weak demand in it's traditional export markets of Japan, the Republic of Korea and Europe. However, exports to other countries in the U.S, Asean members and Latin America grew.
The data did pick up in the second quarter due to an increase in vegetable and peanut exports. Garlic accounted for 40% of the province's vegetable exports and was the main driver for vegetable exports rising 6.9 % year on year during the same period. Hu Zhihua, an official dealing with import-export at Shandong's provincial department in agriculture, has predicted that the situation would improve in the last quarter of the year and that Shandong would maintain its position in being the top exporter of farm produce.
