China-Arab States Date Palm Research Center inaugurated
DATE:2015-09-16 SOURCE:MOA
A tripartite agreement on the establishment of the China-Arab States Date Palm Research Center was inked at the China-Arab States Technology Transfer and Innovation Cooperation Conference on Sept. 11, 2015 in Yinchuan City, Ningxia.
The signing parties are the Coconut Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, Ningxia Base of China-Arab States Technology Transfer Center and its Dubai Base. Under the agreement, the Chinese side shall provide technical support for Red Palm Weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) control and date palm industry development in the Arab States.
The tripartite cooperation will focus on S&T innovation, program application and personnel training. In particular, the cooperation will highlight areas of common interests including tissue culture of Palmae plants, R&D of special-purpose fertilizers, interplanting/animal farming in date palm plantation, integrated pest management and multi-purpose processing and utilization of date palm.
For the next step, China and the Arab States will conduct joint research on nondestructive testing techniques for Red Palm Weevil, attractant for Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle (Oryctes Rhinoceros) and deep-processing of date palm. The Agreement specified that a training platform and two demonstration bases shall be established. Yinchuan will be the training platform, Hainan will be the demonstration base for date palm key technologies and the China-UAE Date Palm S&T Park in Dubai will be another technology demonstration base to drive date palm development in 23 Arab states and territories of the Middle East region.