Fruit businesspeople from China, Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and 10 ASEAN member countries will gather in northwest China's Shaanxi Province to discuss the apple trade between October 8 and 12, organizers said.

The Second Round-Table Meeting of ASEAN-China, Japan and ROK Fruit Businesspeople, organized by China's Agriculture Ministry, Commerce Ministry and the Shaanxi provincial government, will be held in Luochuan, a county that is famous for apple planting in northern Shaanxi, local government official said.

The representatives will also visit Fuxian, another apple growing county neighboring Luochuan, to see about apple planting and business management, the government official said.

Shaanxi has altogether 27 famous apple counties that sell apples abroad.

The northern part of Shaanxi is located in the Loess Plateau, the third largest plateau in China. The Loess is composed of loamy sands rich in the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium needed for farming.

The Ministry of Agriculture has listed the northern Shaanxi regions as the "apple first belt."

Luochuan has now 17,333 hectares of apple orchards and manufactures more than 400,000 tons of high quality apples, statistics of the Shaanxi Provincial Bureau of Fruit Industry show.

The First Round-Table Meeting of ASEAN-China, Japan and ROK Fruit Businesspeople was held in Xi'an, capital city of Shaanxi, at the end of September last year.

During the first meeting, Chinese merchants reached 48 trade agreements worth 980 million yuan (121 million US dollars) with foreign counterparts.

Source: Xinhua