Last year, China's meat production topped 72.69 million tons, up 6 per cent from the previous year, Deng Fujiang, vice president of the China Meat Association, told the World Pork Conference which opened Thursday morning in eastern China's coastal city of Qingdao.

Of the total, 63.5 per cent was pork, he said, adding nearly half of the world's pork last year had been produced in China.

China is a major consumer of meat products as well. It imported 1.84 million tons but exported only 742,000 tons last year, said Mr Deng.

Patrick J. Moore, president of the International Meat Secretariat, said he expected increasing worldwide meat consumption and international trade despite the impact of the global economic downturn and the A(H1N1) flu epidemic.

Global meat consumption is projected to expand by almost 2 per cent annually from now to 2018 to more than 320 million tons, 37.5 per cent of which would be pig meat, he said, citing an OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)-FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organization) Agricultural Outlook report issued in June.