A tea garden in Anji county, Huzhou, East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/hz66.com]

Anji county in Huzhou, East China's Zhejiang province recently made online invoice application services available to tea farmers.

The move is expected to bring convenience to more than 17,000 tea companies and farmers in the county, which welcomed the spring tea season earlier this month.

Previously, local tea farmers had to go to the local tax department to apply for invoices for tea leaf transactions. Now, this can be done within two minutes on Zheliban, an administrative service app launched by Zhejiang.

In addition, more 200 tax officials from the county have been assigned to offer door-to-door services for tea farmers. Efforts have also been made to keep them abreast of the latest preferential tax policies in the nation.

Pan Yuanqing, president of Anji Longwangshan Tea Development Co Ltd, said that the company has been informed that they are eligible for tax reductions worth more than 1 million yuan ($145,409) due to their digital upgrading efforts.

To expand its business, the company has just spent more than 10 million yuan to upgrade six digital production lines.

According to the Anji bureau of agriculture and rural affairs, the yield of Anji white tea, a premium variety of tea produced in the county, is estimated to hit 2,300 metric tons this year. The first batch of tea is expected to be priced between 6,000 to 12,000 yuan per kilogram, which is slightly higher than previous years.