The China Agricultural New and High Technology Forum opened on Monday in the international exhibition and convention center in Yangling, Shaanxi Province in northwest China.

The forum focuses on the agricultural developments in China's western areas. Senior government officials and leading experts will give lectures or present papers.

The forum is an important part of the Eighth China Yangling Agricultural High-tech Expo, that opened Monday in Yangling, the country's only state-level agricultural high-tech demonstration zone.

The expo was jointly organized by 17 ministries, as well as the Shaanxi Provincial Government, the UNDP, the UNESCO, the World Bank and the European Union.

The expo is also one of the four major hi-tech exhibitions in the country. The other three are the Beijing International Hi-tech Week, the Shanghai International Industrial Expo, and the China International Hi-tech Fair in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province.

The four exhibitions feature biological engineering, information industry, hi-tech exchanges and cooperation, investment, international cooperation, and agricultural technology.

(Xinhua News Agency November 6, 2001)