Agro-industry: an EU doorway to China Collaboration with one of the world's most formidable nations has taken on another dimension through an EU initiative to assist China's fruit and vegetable processing industry. Climate Change and Environment © Thinkstock Joint research and development (R&D) projects between China and the EU have flourished in recent years. One such initiative is the EU-funded project 'Responding to development challenges in China through research and assessment of suitable industrial protocol in the processing of fruits and vegetables' (Chinaparts). The high-tech, modern agro-food industry and standards of the EU can be of great benefit to Chinese production. It also helps open the door for the EU to offer its expertise to China's numerous industries. With this in mind, Chinaparts established a project website and launched a workshop in Beijing, China that brought together European and Chinese experts in the fruit and vegetable processing sector. The workshop team investigated the practices, standards and policies of China and undertook several visits to fruit and vegetable processing facilities in and around Beijing. As a result, the project produced a report on the main policies, standards and practices for the sector in China. Another workshop took place in Beijing as well with the aim of setting up an international scientific platform for the agro-food industry. With the prospect of deepening collaboration between China and the EU, the second workshop attracted 40 industry stakeholders from all over Europe as well as from China. The stakeholders hailed not only from the processing side of the industry, but also from research, government and other sectors of the industry. Project efforts resulted in the establishment of a cross-border agro-food processing platform strategy and a valuable database of contacts in the agro-food sector. The strategy and database are likely to be very important tools in propelling Chinese-EU collaboration in the agro-food sector to higher ground.
