On March 22th, the School of Public Affairs (PAS) invited Mr FANG Guoqiang to give a lecture about tea industry under ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative. FANG is the President of Anhui Tea Industry Association and the CEO of Huangshan XinAnYuan Organic Tea Development Co.,Ltd.
The lecture attracted nearly 100 people, including international students mostly from ‘One Belt One Road’ route countries, etc. Anhui TV and Huangshan TV came to record.
Mr. FANG told three episodes from his experience and his understanding about tea industry by illustrating his startup and XinAnYuan’s blueprint.
FANG made his own business from nothing to important, he shared the expeirence at the very begining.
The stories of tea exporting are interesting as well. Due to European’s restricted rules in food safety, some qualified tea was offgrade in Europe. But XinAnYuan’s tea won European certification for 15 consecutive years because they never use fertilizer. XinAnYuan’s tea garden became the largest Chinese organic tea supplier in Europe, meanwhile, it took a large portion in national tea exporting. In May 2010, a manager from a German tea company visited XinAnYuan and treated tea growers with red packet. He promised to carry on this kind of treatment every year as well as organise a tour to Germany for tea growers.
The third episode was about the role of tea in diplomacy. In both Beijing Olymipic Games 2008 and Shanghai EXPO 2010, XinAnYuan was one of the official tea suppliers. When Russian Prime Minister Medvedev visited China and USTC in 2013, XinAnYuan’s tea was presented as a gift for him. Mr FANG said they will insist on sustainable development and persue tea growers’‘Chinese Dream’ through quality organic tea exporting. He wished long term cooperation with USTC and invited students and teachers to their tea garden.
In Q&A section, the audience asked many questions, such as the competitiveness of organic tea, cultivation and irrigation of organic tea, S&T innovation in XinAnYuan, future plan in global market and further support to ‘One Belt One Road’ route countries for organic tea growing. Mr FANG answered all the questions and concluded the lecture.
Professor SONG Wei, Dean of PAS, LIU Yinghua and TIAN Yu, Director and Director Assistant of the International Affairs Office, ZHU Feiming, Vice President of Anhui Tea Industry Association, ZHANG Wei, Officer of Anhui Provincial Agriculture Commission, MENG Shoudong, Director of Anhui poverty relief program department attend the leture.
At last, Dean SONG Wei awarded Mr. FANG as the graduate students’ practice teacher on behalf of SPA. SONG hoped to cooperate with XinAnYuan in the future, in order to promote tea industry and S&T innovation for both sides under the lead of ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative
(FANG Yuan,LIU Yinghua, The School of Public Affairs)
