Representatives from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and China planted a batch of date palm seedlings donated by the UAE on Saturday in Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences in Wenchang, south China's Hainan Province, Dec. 7, 2024. (Photo/China News Service)

Representatives from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and China planted a batch of date palm seedlings donated by the UAE on Saturday in Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences in Wenchang, south China's Hainan Province.

This is the second batch of 23,500date palm seedlings donated to China for agricultural cooperation, following the first batch of 1,500 seedlings in 2021.

Known as "the bread of the desert," date palm is a major food crop and an important bridge for China to deepen cooperation with Arab countries. The initiative for the donation of 100,000 date palm to China is a significant consensus reached between the leaders of the two countries.

The first batch of 1,500date palm seedlings was planted in Wenchang in Dec. 2021 with a survival rate reaching 92.78 percent after 3 years. Some of them have already started flowering and bearing fruit.

The institute will further promote multiple site trail planting of date palm trees in Hainan, Yunnan and Fujian provinces, exploring their adaptability to different areas, said Hu Wei, head of Coconut Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences.

In recent years, China and the UAE have achieved fruitful results in cooperation on salt-tolerant rice cultivation, plant pest and disease control, and other areas, while the scale of agricultural trade between the two countries continues to expand, according to Zhang Zhili, vice minister of the Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China.

China is willing to further deepen agricultural technology exchanges and economic and trade cooperation with the UAE, Zhang said. Through the joint establishment of modern agricultural laboratories, both sides aim to continuously advance agricultural collaboration to a higher level, bringing more benefits to the peoples of both countries, Zhang added.