At the Cabinet's weekly meeting Thursday, Premier Su Tseng-chang received a Council of Agriculture (COA) briefing on efforts to promote a nationwide cold chain logistics system. Establishing such a system will bring transformative change to Taiwan's agricultural industry by reducing waste, raising salability rates, increasing the flexibility to balance production versus consumption, boosting export sales, and ensuring better food safety.

Expediting the construction of an agricultural products cold chain logistics system is revolutionizing the industry, the premier said, helping to reduce waste, increasing salability rates (such as boosting the rate for fruit exports from 75 percent to 98 percent), extending product shelf life, and expanding storage capacity. The system is also allowing greater flexibility to balance production versus consumption, expanding export sales, and providing for better food safety.

Making the most of our agricultural production and optimizing distribution can significantly increase farmers' incomes, which in turn will increase overall agricultural industry competitiveness. It will also increase food reserves for defense preparedness (providing two months' worth of agricultural and livestock products and six months of aquatic products), thus ensuring national food security.

Premier Su also directed the COA to cooperate closely with local governments as well as farmers' and fishermen's associations, providing professional assistance to help all production sites implement the relevant plans, and closely monitoring their progress, so that we can complete these tasks on schedule and as planned.