Sino-Singapore Jilin Food Zone harvests first rice crop for sale in Singapore

CONSUMERS in Singapore will get to taste the first product from Sino-Singapore Jilin Food Zone (SSJFZ) when the high-quality Fragrance 43ºN japonica rice goes on sale here by year-end.

Fragrance 43ºN - named after the 43rd parallel north latitude on which China's Jilin City is located - was unveiled on Thursday at the Sino-Singapore Jilin Food Zone Seminar, which was jointly hosted by Singbridge and the Jilin City Government.

For the pilot launch, 60 tonnes of rice will be imported and distributed by NTUC FairPrice from end-2015. It will be available at all NTUC FairPrice Xtra hypermarkets and FairPrice Finest supermarkets, in 2.5kg and 5kg packages.

Singapore currently imports japonica rice mainly from Japan, the United States and Vietnam.

Fragrance 43ºN will be exported by state-owned China Nationals Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation, the only state-owned enterprise that is allocated export quotas for rice, governed by China's Ministry of Commerce.

Lee Boon Yang, Chairman of Jilin Food Zone Pte Ltd, said Jilin Food Zone is well located to become an important source of quality food for China and regional markets. The area boasts of weather conditions similar to those of Hokkaido, Japan's most agriculturally rich prefecture.

"We are looking forward to further progress in the Zone. As the latest Singbridge project in China, Jilin Food Zone is another example of the cooperative relations that China and Singapore share as both countries commemorate 25 years of diplomatic relations."

SSJFZ aims to become a model food zone for the production of safe and quality food, replicable and scalable to other parts of China and beyond. It is also exploring the introduction of other products from SSJFZ into the Singapore market in the next one to two years.

SSJFZ is managed by Sino-Singapore Jilin Food Zone Development and Management Co, Ltd, a 40:60 joint venture between Singbridge and the Jilin City Government.