CRI听力:Small Chinese Town Flourishes off of Tea Industry

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Tea, China's national beverage, has helped many small tea-growing towns across the country flourish. Anxi, a hilly county in Southeast China's Fujian Province, is a typical example.

Xu Weiyi has more. (www.hXen.com)

Reporter:

When dawn breaks on a sunny day, Bai Jinton, a local tea grower, carries some 50 kilograms of tea along a mountainous road on his motorcycle. His destination is one of China's most prosperous tea markets, a national-level wholesale tea trading center in Anxi County.

Official statistics show the center witnessed trade of 15,000 tons of tea in 2008, a quarter of the county's tea output over the whole year, with a trading volume amounting to over 200 million US dollars.

Bai Jintong's booth is in the midst of more than 1,000 sellers and traders busy with the business of tea.

In between negotiations with potential buyers, Bai Jintong tells about his prosperous tea business.

"I can harvest more than 5,000 kilograms of tea from my 1.3-hectare tea garden each year. After selling all this tea, I can enjoy an annual income of nearly 30,000 US dollars."

The trading center has boosted the local economy and the income of Anxi County residents since it launched nine years ago.

In 2008, their per capita income amounted to more than 1,000 US dollars, 55 percent of that from growing and trading tea.

Bridging tea gardens and consumers' teapots, the trading center of nearly 17 hectares has offered a convenient platform for growers and traders.

A trader surnamed Chen is from another part of Fujian Province.

"I have just bought several hundred kilograms of tea at this trading center. I come from Putian City and will sell my tea to local customers in my hometown. You know, I buy several thousand kilograms of tea from this trading center each year."

The tea trading center has even reached overseas markets, exporting local Chinese tea to more

than 60 countries and regions.

Xu Weiyi, CRI news.