Huaian, a prefecture-level city in east Chinas Jiangsu Province has pursued a moderately prosperous society in all respects by promoting the development of its speciality food industry.

To pursue a well-off society with higher quality, Huaian has taken advantages as an important commodity grain base and the hometown of Huaiyang cuisine, one of the four traditional Chinese cuisines, to develop specialty food industry, and the output value of its food industry has exceeded 100 billion yuan, said Cai Lixin, party chief of Huaian.

The city has striven to promote the scale, standard, information, network and chain development of its agricultural products by building related bases, standards, quality system, e-commerce platforms and offline stores, said Ni Jianhua, director of the Huaian Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau.

At the third China (Huaian) International Food Expo held in Huaian October 15-17, multiple quality Huaian agricultural products were displayed, showing the distinctive "Huaian flavor" to the world.

Over 336 renowned food enterprises participated in the exhibition, including 94 overseas enterprises from 24 countries and regions.

A cloud platform integrating cloud exhibition, cloud conference and cloud connection was also built, attracting 448 exhibitors and over three million professional visitors.

During the expo, Huaian introduced 25 food industry projects with investment totaling 24.1 billion yuan, including seven foreign-invested projects with investment totaling 969 million U.S. dollars.

Huaian has also launched pilot projects to help local people to relieve poverty by involving them in business related to agricultural product production.

In 2018, the Lianshui County in Huaian took the lead to open the sunshine poverty relief supermarket, offering help in starting a business, employment, charity and consulting, and displaying information on development projects, skill training and job hunting.

The supermarket has provided more smart solutions to help people relieve poverty, said Guo Yajun, a poverty relief official from Chenshi Town of Lianshui County.

Under the guidance of the supermarket, Guo has helped a family of three apply for a small loan and start a chicken raise business. The family has now kept 3,000-odd chickens and dozens of sheep, realizing 100,000-odd yuan of annual income.