Xinhua Silk Road: SE China's Quanzhou strives to build itself into Creative City of Gastronomy

BEIJING, July 31, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Quanzhou City in southeast China's Fujian Province has recently held a launching ceremony for the application to become a Creative City of Gastronomy in the Creative Cities Network of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) was created in 2004 to promote cooperation with and among cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development. It encourages cities to choose one of the seven creative fields to apply for: Crafts and Folk Art, Design, Film, Gastronomy, Literature, Media Arts, and Music. Currently, there are ten cities selected as the Creative City of Gastronomy globally, including six from China.

Quanzhou City issued a work plan in June this year proposing to highlight the positive role of delicacies in expanding domestic demand, integrating industries, boosting consumption, driving employment, and improving people's lives, and work all out to build itself into a Creative City of Gastronomy based on the overall plan of two-year preparation, four-year application, and six-year creation.

The city has great confidence in achieving the goal as it boasts a long history, a rich culture, abundant marine fishery resources, and a food and beverage output value exceeding 100 billion yuan, with GI (Geographical Indication) agricultural and aquatic products such as Anxi Tie Guan Yin (Anxi oolong tea) and Yongchun vinegar renowned both home and abroad, and extended business models such as wholesale of aquatic products and prefabricated dishes flourishing.

Data showed the city now owns 100,347 various types of catering market entities, ranking first in Fujian province, and it has abundant overseas Chinese resources and chamber of commerce resources, and broad delicacy exchange channels, creating solid foundation and unique advantages for itself to become a Creative City of Gastronomy.

At the launching ceremony, Quanzhou invited 22 expert consultants to provide professional intellectual support for the application work.

It has also introduced a special work plan putting forward to constantly enhance the development foundation for the delicacy industry by combining the application work, including making catering market entities exceed 150,000 by 2027, nurturing ten leading catering enterprises each with an annual sales exceeding 100 million yuan, building 20 streets of characteristic delicacies, etc.

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