China Liyang Tea Festival and Tianmu Lake Tourism Festival simultaneously kicked off in Liyang, Changzhou on April 10, marking the 30th year since the tea culture was first celebrated in 1991.

Celebrations will run for a month to highlight the wonderful vitality, leisure and entertainment in Liyang. A series of tea-related activities will be held focusing on culture, tourism, technology, economy and trade.

Due to the ongoing uncertainty regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, most of these activities will be held both online and offline.

At the opening ceremony, Noriaki Yamada, mayor of Hakusan, Liyang's sister city in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan, congratulated everyone on the grand opening of the dual-festival via video link.

Esteemed guests who attended the ceremony included academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, leaders of universities, government officials, think tank experts and scholars, and Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs.

As part of the ceremony, awards and titles presented to Liyang included China's Most Beautiful Tourist City and National Demonstration Area for Study Tour. Special plaques were delivered to outstanding star-rated tea houses in Liyang. Also featuring at the event, 18 projects from both domestic and foreign enterprises across multiple industries signed contracts with the government of Liyang. Their investments totaled 42.32 billion yuan, proving the city's massive potential in economic and social development.

With the dual-festival running all the way through the Labor Day holiday to May 10, thirteen more activities will be held in succession to keep visitors entertained, including white tea leaf picking, a fishing carnival, a marathon that meanders through the surrounding scenic areas, and a traditional Han Chinese clothing cultural festival.

First celebrated in 1991, Liyang Tea Festival has gone through 30 years with new ideas being continuously brought in. Giving priority to environmental protection, Liyang has accelerated the development of tea industry, ecological agriculture and tourism to increase economic growth.