Hangzhou Vegetable Exports to Japan Defy Chinese Slump

At the beginning of this year, Japan's "poison dumpling case" severely impacted China's food exports and particularly hit China's agricultural product exports.

In a research note, the general Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China announced that two batches of dumplings involved in the case were found to have no traces of methylamine phosphorus residue after a rigorous inspection. But according to the results of the Japanese police's survey, China's dumpling packets had suspicious eyelets and the police suspected tampering in order to inject agrochemical substances during shipping. As a result of this suspicion, many Chinese vegetable exports were suspended and agricultural exports shrunk significantly. Worse, large numbers of China's food exporters ( http://www.tootoo.com/w-Agriculture/ ) and vegetable processing enterprises closed down.

Agricultural information in Tootoo.com ( http://www.tootoo.com/ ) demonstrates that between January and May of this year, Hangzhou Entry-exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau examined 853 batches (22,000 tons) of processing vegetables exported to Japan, valued at 121,000,000 Yuan, with 28.6%, 96.5% and 85.4% increases separately from last year, all successfully passed Japan's customs inspection. Meanwhile, as Chinese suppliers sharply reduce at export market, Hangzhou vegetable export prices saw a notable rise.

After the "poisonous dumpling" affair, many provinces and areas in China stopped exporting agricultural by-products to Japan. Between January and April of this year, Jinhua city saw exports of steam-fixed green tea ( http://www.tootoo.com/buy-steamed_green_tea/ ) to Japan down 70% compared to last year. Many Shandong agricultural exporters are still under production suspension and half-production at present. Different from other cities, exporters in Hangzhou seized the opportunity of meeting serious vegetable supply shortages in the Japanese domestic market, effectively raising prices and extending export volume. After a careful probe, some market researchers from Tootoo.com found that Hangzhou exporters not only made great efforts on production to guarantee outstanding vegetable quality but also invested huge capital on agrochemical residue instrumentation to enhance product credibility. These are the main reasons for Hangzhou vegetable exporters' success in Japan.

Most importantly, under the guidance of government sectors, Hangzhou 136 vegetable planted bases (137,000 Chinese acres totally), implemented a new product inspection and quarantine record system. Based on this system, vegetable products exported to Japan -- even if a small bag of fresh bamboo shoots ( http://news.tootoo.com/Agriculture/Vegetables/ ) in a supermarket -- can be tracked to the farmland the raw material comes from.