Expo on rural entrepreneurship, innovation to be held in Nanjing

Nanjing will host China's National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Expo for New Farmers and New Technology from Nov 15 to 18.

The annual event at the Nanjing International Expo Center is expected to attract more than 1,200 businesses, 3,000 invited guests from China and overseas, and 60,000 visitors, the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs said on Thursday.

"The scale and quality of this year's exhibition will be far greater than in the past two years," said Zeng Yande, head of the ministry's Department for Rural Industry Development. 

The opening ceremony will feature a forum on the experiences gained in the agriculture sector since the reform and opening-up policy came into effect 40 years ago. 

Representatives of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization as well as Israeli agricultural innovators will participate in forums during the expo. 

In the past four decades, China has made great progress in the development of rural entrepreneurship and innovation, with more than 7.4 million people now working on such projects in the countryside, Zeng said.

He said more than half of the projects are based on information technology, while almost 90 percent involve collaborations. 

"These entrepreneurs and innovators are tasked with being a driving force of China's rural revitalization strategy," he added.