Guizhou's chili production and sales rank national first in 2020

Guizhou showcases its featured chili variety at a chili expo held in Zunyi. [Photo/gog.cn]

In 2020, Southwest China's Guizhou province planted 5.45 million mu (363,333.33 hectares) of chilies, accounting for 7.24 million metric tons of output volume and 24.2 billion yuan ($3.76 billion) of output value, ranking first in China.

Guizhou's chili products have been sold to both domestic and international markets, with a trading volume worth 75 billion yuan in 2020. The chili industry helped more than 900,000 impoverished people increase their incomes and created 17,000 job positions in 2020.

To promote the development of a chili industry cluster, Guizhou established a special work team in May 2020 and issued 100 million yuan of government funds to attract public capital to the chili industry.

With the cooperation between companies, agricultural cooperatives and farmers, Guizhou has promoted improved chili varieties to replace the old plantations. By the end of 2020, Guizhou had replaced 600,000 mu of chilies, with 90 percent of the main production areas covered with improved chili varieties.

In 2021, Guizhou will aim to expand the plantation area for chilies to more than 5 million mu, establish 2 million mu of large-scale and standardized planting bases, and achieve 6.5 million tons of output volume and 23 billion yuan of output value.

Guizhou will strive to achieve 15 billion yuan of chili processing production value and exceed 80 billion yuan of chili trading value, helping realize the province's transformation from a large-volume chili producer to a high-quality chili producer.