After review and discussion of the South African and Chinese governments, the ministries of Science and Technology of the two countries agreed to the 10 long-term joint research projects and 11 short-long projects as the international research cooperation plan which will be supported in the period of 20102012. Among them, the project proposed by Prof. JIANG Yueming of South China Botanical Garden, "Induced storability and quality control of postharvest tropical fruits" as a long-term joint project has been approved (No. CS05-L08).

The South African partner of the project is University of Pretoria. The two sides will work together to solve the quality of fresh tropical fruits in a period of 2010-2012 by determining the key technical issues and elucidating postharvest property of citrus, litchi, mango and other tropical fruits. The output of the joint research project will develop new posthsrvest technologies, then improve postharvest handling system of tropical fruits, and finally promote the core competitiveness of China's fruits and the industrial sustainable development.