Yangling Agriculture High-Tech Industrial Demonstration Zone

Yangling Agriculture High-Tech Industrial Demonstration Zone was established as a national-level high-tech zone on July 29, 1997 with the approval of the State Council. It is the first national-level high-tech industrial development zone on agricultural technology and industry in China as well as China’s only pilot free trade zone with distinct agricultural characteristics.

Located at the center of the Guanzhong Plain in Shaanxi province and 85 kilometers to the west of Xi’an, the zone is the site of the China Yangling Agricultural Hi-Tech Fair (CAF), one of the nation’s key technological exhibitions. Yangling’s agri-science and CAF are two shiny business cards for the city with each brand value exceeding 80 billion yuan ($11.89 billion).

Renowned as China’s agri-science-city, Yangling has been home to two universities, five research institutes and 10 agricultural science and education units since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Over the past 20 years, the zone has focused on the demands of the nation’s key plans on agriculture such as food safety, ecological safety and the development in dry areas, and launched a series of new technologies and new patterns including experimental stations in colleges, industrial chains, agri-science training, etc. It has promoted a total of 2,700 new products and technologies and built 312 demonstration bases for agricultural technologies in 18 provinces and regions across the nation, and an annual extension area of 4.33 million hectares with a profit of more than 17 billion yuan.

By the end of October 2018, the zone has established cooperative relations with more than 60 countries in the field of modern agriculture, of which over 50 are countries involved in the nation’s Belt and Road Initiative. It has attracted a batch of Fortune Global 500 enterprises such as the Cargill Inc from the United States.

As a vital base for China’s international cooperation in agriculture and training, the zone has cultivated more than 1,400 technicians and government officials from more than 110 countries.

In 2016, the zone reached a GDP of some 11.9 billion yuan, up 10.1 percent year-on-year. In 2017, its GDP growth was 14.13 billion yuan, an annual increase of 9.5 percent.