A farmer picks tea leaves at a tea plantation in Meitan County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, April 4, 2023. (Xinhua/Ou Dongqu)

Global media representatives witnessed the vibrant development of the county economy during their visit to southwest China's Guizhou Province this week.

Over 20 journalists from 14 countries and regions, including the Republic of Korea, Spain and Vietnam, started their Guizhou trip on Monday when they visited the city of Zunyi. They also spent time in the cities of Anshun and Guiyang in Guizhou during the five-day excursion.

In Zunyi, they visited Meitan County, which boasts one of the world's three major tea production areas, along with Wuyi Mountain in China's Fujian Province and Darjeeling in India. The county is now home to 40,000 hectares of tea gardens.

In 2023, the county's tea output had reached 72,100 tonnes, with an output value of more than 7.5 billion yuan (about 1.05 billion U.S. dollars) and a comprehensive income of over 18 billion yuan.

"It's my first time to see such a large tea garden and know what fresh tea leaves look like. The tea was really delicious and refreshing," said Nagy Wang Viktor, a journalist from Hungary, who tried tea harvesting and tasted locally grown green tea and black tea.

In Meitan, journalists were invited to visit a tea company and join local tea masters in drying leaves in big iron pots.

Interested in China and its culture, Kim Kwangsoo, a journalist from the Seoul Economic Daily in the Republic of Korea, has been working in China since 2021.

When learning that Meitan County makes use of its tea resources to boost tourism and develop tea-related products, Kim thought of the southern island of Jeju in his mother country, where similar development methods have been adopted.

"Comparatively, the tea plantation areas are larger in Guizhou, and the tea culture is really strong in China. Tea has been blended into the daily lives of Chinese people," said Kim.

Just like Meitan, many other counties in the mountainous Guizhou have developed their own unique industries to drive the growth of rural economies.

The county of Zheng'an in Zunyi is now the world's largest guitar producer, creating over 2.25 million instruments annually. Data shows that one out of every seven guitars worldwide is made in this county.

"I'm really impressed that so many guitars come out of China's mountainous areas, and that the quality of the guitars looks good, despite the fact that Guizhou's economic condition was relatively underdeveloped compared to other parts of the country," said Kim.

Zheng'an once conducted a survey which showed that up to 54,000 natives were employed in the guitar manufacturing industry in places like Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province. This prompted the county to leverage the skills and experience of such workers, and started its guitar manufacturing industry back in 2012.

After more than ten years of development, the Zheng'an guitar cultural industrial park has attracted nearly 140 guitar-related enterprises and developed a complete industrial chain. To increase competitiveness in the market, innovations have been made by local guitar manufacturers.

During their visit to a local company, Guizhou Zheng'an Natasha Musical Instrument Manufacturing Co., Ltd, the factory manager, Li Qiwang, told the journalists that as traditional guitar manufacturing relies heavily on imported wood, his team had invented a smart guitar made entirely of bamboo -- thereby providing a richer playing experience through innovative technologies.

Alvaro Alfaro, a journalist of the Spanish news agency Agencia EFE, said the use of bamboo is environmentally friendly and injects elements of Chinese culture into guitar-making.