On October 16th, people gathered at new Qixia cultural square with harvest happiness and global envoys to china attended the opening ceremony of the Seventeenth Apple Art Festival-the First Farmer Harvest Festival.
This event themed as “green, harvest, share, openness, cooperation and innovation” aims to spread apple culture, celebrate apple harvest, unswervingly build Qixia as “capital city of apple and green city”, and advance the city construction with Jiaodong characteristics, thus sharing harvest happiness with all citizens. In the spirit of practice, openness, share and simplicity, local government sticks to the pathway of government guidance, market operation, farmer’s participation and economic and trade performance to expand the scale of sales campaign through online and traditional platform, thus increasing sales and promoting economic cooperation and exchanges in culture and tourism.
During the opening ceremony, Qixia was awarded as “World Apple City Recommended by Global Embassies to China” and “Designated Fruit Authorized by Global Embassies to China”, which was the highlight of this festival. Meanwhile, some envoys received the award of “Global Image Ambassador to Qixia Apple” in local noisy applause. On one side of square, some exhibitions including local fruit and produce exhibition and 2018 tourism product design and tourism photo contest attracted the public attention and a lot of people recorded this moment with their cell phones, leaving this site happy and harvest atmosphere.
Chen Zhaokuan, secretary of Qixia municipal committee of the CPC, said in the opening ceremony, Qixia’s apple is famous in the world with a long history and high quality. Apples not only carry farmer’s aspiration for a happy life, but also are loaded with Qixia people’s wish for a safe, sound and healthy family. He added that it is our promise and pursuit to provide customers with green, ecological and quality fruit. It is said that Qixia is the original place to plant apples and also the major apple industry of Yaitai. It is well-known as a city supported by apples. Qixia covers a planting area of more than 1 million mu with total apple output of 2.2 billion kilogram and total income of more than 12 billion yuan. Besides, Qixia enjoys the first digital trade market for apples, the largest whole-sale fruit market in North, the first development academy of apple industry and thousands of enterprises producing apple juice, wine, vinegar, chips, enzyme and packages for ice preserving. It ranks first in six sectors as plant area, comprehensive service, garden management, quality, output and enterprise performance. In recent years, Qixia has earned many titles as “Top ten city of healthy fruit and vegetables in China”, “Top ten county-level city of modern apple industry in china” and “Top fruit city in China”. This city is also voted as the ecological demonstration for product protection by State Administration for Market Regulation and the only top ten national notable brand of fruit and vegetables among apple producing regions. The brand value of Qixia apple amounted to 5.43 billion yuan according to the evaluation released by China Fruit Marketing Association in 2018. 
The Portugal Minister Counselor Teresa said in his opening speech, “I am very glad to attend this event. It offers us a great opportunity to know about this city including cultural landscapes, natural scenery and city achievements. I believe I will fall in love with this city when visiting. Meanwhile, we really hope all of us may feel the same way. Moreover, I, along with all envoys, am willing to make contributions to the Qixia’s development in culture, economy and tourism.”