Yang Zhen, vice-chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, led a survey team to South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Southwest China's Yunnan province from May 5 to 11, to research the handling of the key proposals on strengthening the protection of geographic indications.

Yang is also executive vice-chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party.

The survey team visited production workshops, specialized cooperatives, plantations and fields of geographic indication enterprises in the cities of Guilin and Liuzhou in Guangxi as well as Kunming and Dali cities in Yunnan, so as to gain a better understanding of the development and cultivation of geographic indication resources as well as the legal protection, use and management of geographic indication products. They also explored the ways to use geographic indications to promote economic development with regional characteristics and enhance brand competitiveness.

During the survey, the team also held symposiums in the two regions to conduct in-depth interactions with officials of relevant local government departments and representatives from industry associations, companies and farmers.

The research team applauded the achievements of Guangxi and Yunnan in protecting geographic indications and pointed out that more efforts should be made to continuously promote the integration of geographic indications protection, comprehensive rural vitalization and ecological construction so as to improve local brand competitiveness in the international market and promote geographic indication products.