A trader unloads watermelons at a wholesale market in Beijing. Senior commerce officials yesterday urged foreign investors to expand in China's agricultural wholesale sector. [Photo: China Daily]

Senior commerce officials yesterday urged foreign investors to expand in China's agricultural wholesale sector, which is worth US$146 billion in output annually.

Lower returns compared with the retail and supermarket sectors has made wholesale less enticing for overseas investors. To date, the Ministry of Commerce has received only one overseas investment application.

Assistant Minister of Commerce Huang Hai said China encourages foreign investors in the booming wholesale sector, adding that overseas involvement could help raise standards to an international level.

"China's wholesale market has been fully opened to foreign investors, but it has become less attractive because of low returns," Huang told China Daily yesterday at the 25th Congress of the World Union of Wholesale Markets, a three-day event being held in Beijing.

He confirmed that his ministry had accepted one overseas application to set up a wholesale market in China, but didn't name the applicant.

Donald Darnall, chairman of the US-based World Union of Wholesale Markets, said Huang's comments were "encouraging news" for wholesalers attending the event.

Darnall said foreign investors could form partnerships with the government or local companies, bringing with them practices that ensure high-level hygiene and food safety in the marketplace.

Huang said China needs international experience and best practices to track food quality along the whole "farm-to-table" process. Its fledgling agricultural wholesale market, which has had only 20 years to develop, is less advanced in terms of technology and management in some cities.

However, Huang said the government has attached great importance to improving supply chain management, information and "green" techniques.

China has 4,370 wholesale markets nationwide, at which 70 percent of agricultural product trade happens.

"It will take the wholesale markets in big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai three to five years to meet advanced international standards," said Huang. "And those in less developed regions will take a much longer time."

Sompong Nimchuar, minister-counselor of the Thai Embassy in China, said China's plan to expand wholesale markets and attract foreign investment has brought more opportunities to Thai investors and farmers.