China's output of early rice rose 1.2 percent year on year to reach 28.52 million tonnes in 2025, laying a solid foundation for stabilizing annual grain production, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.
Among the country's major grain producing provinces, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Guangdong achieved restorative growth with increases in early rice output this year after experiencing a decline in 2024 due to disasters.
Their early rice output grew by 2.4 percent, 1.8 percent, and 1.0 percent, respectively.
In addition, the yield of early rice per mu (about 0.067 hectares) this year has reached 400.8 kilograms, exceeding 400 kilograms for the first time and reflecting a 1.5 percent increase from the previous year.
This year, severe drought during the spring sowing season in some regions hampered the timely transplanting of early rice. Consequently, some farmers switched to other crops, leading to a slight reduction in the early rice sowing area.
However, thanks to a series of supportive policies introduced by the Chinese government, the total planting area for early rice in the country remained stable at 71.14 million mu (about 4.74 million hectares) despite earlier challenges. This is the sixth year in a row that the planting area has remained steady around 71 million mu.
Amid complex international environment and frequent extreme weather events around the world, China's early rice harvest has laid a solid foundation for stable grain production throughout the year, according to the NBS.
China achieves higher early rice output
Zhao Leji, chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, held talks with Tomio Okamura, speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic, in Beijing on Thursday.
Noting that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the China-Czech strategic partnership, Zhao, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said China stands ready to work with the Czech side to carry forward traditional friendship, enhance mutual understanding and trust, strengthen exchanges and cooperation, and promote the sound and steady growth of bilateral relations.
Zhao called on both sides to consolidate the political foundation of their ties, sustain the momentum of improvement in bilateral relations, and resume and step up exchanges and interactions at all levels and across all fields.
Both sides should further tap cooperation potential, give full play to the role of mechanisms such as the economic joint committee between China and Czech and the China-Central and Eastern European Countries Expo, explore ways to strengthen cooperation in new energy, electric vehicles and other fields, and support enterprises of the two countries in expanding investment cooperation, Zhao added.
The NPC is ready to enhance friendly exchanges with the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic, carry out mutual learning and exchanges on legislative supervision, economic development, improvement of people's livelihood, formulate, revise and ratify legal documents conducive to bilateral cooperation, and maintain close communication and collaboration within multilateral mechanisms such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Zhao said.
Zhao also said China is willing to work with all countries, including the Czech Republic, to strengthen exchanges and cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence and promote the establishment of a fair and equitable global governance system for AI.
Okamura said the Czech Republic adheres to the one-China policy, adding that it hopes to strengthen tourism cooperation with China and welcome more Chinese tourists to visit the Czech Republic, expand cooperation in areas such as economy and trade, cultural relic exhibitions, and direct flights, and enhance people-to-people exchanges.
The Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic stands ready to strengthen friendly exchanges with China's NPC and enhance the friendship between the two peoples, Okamura added.
China's top legislator holds talks with speaker of Czech Chamber of Deputies
