The 25th Congress of the World Union of Wholesale Markets (WUWM) - to be celebrated in Beijing, China in September 2007 - has been launched with the full support of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.
A formal press conference was held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on August 4. The Chinese vice minister of commerce, Huang Hai and China Agricultural Market Association (CAWA) chairman Zengjun Ma (the official host organiser of the congress) joined WUWM chairman, Donald Darnall and WUWM secretary general, Maria Cavit at the official launch.
Hai noted the major importance that agricultural wholesale markets have in ensuring the success of Chinese export markets, products and agricultural systems of the future. He voiced the Chinese government’s support to upgrade, reconstruct, and strengthen national agricultural wholesale markets, and indicated the necessity for their ongoing modernisation and development.
Darnall, expressed the ongoing WUWM commitment to ensuring the effective global representation of food markets, and to securing opportunities which support the consolidation of relationships with food market colleagues in China and the Asian region.
“One of the most effective links in the global food supply chain is the world’s food markets, which exist in all sizes, and which function in a variety of ways,” Darnall said. “The WUWM has members from all types of food markets; big and small, retail and wholesale, working together to educate the world’s leaders on the importance of local food markets, while developing news ways to implement technology, increase logistics efficiencies, and improve sanitation, food handling and storage. Our members are dedicated to improving the ways in which the world’s food markets can support the production and delivery of food products to all citizens of the world” he noted.
