An official with China's Ministry of Science and Technology said Monday that his ministry, together with the Ministry of Agriculture, poured 405 million yuan (48.8 million US dollars) into research and development in dairy industry in the past three years.

The investment contributed 15 percent increase in dairy production and 5.918 billion yuan worth of added income for farmers, he added.

Guo Zhiwei, who oversees the project on key technologies of dairy industry, said the project has been the largest and most expensive one in the field since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Since 2002, the ministry has organized public bidding for 26 research and development subjects, which attracted 76 companies, universities and research institutions, including the country's top ten diary producers.

Statistics showed that in 2002, average per capita share of meat in China was 51.17 kilograms while that of poultry was 16.1 kilograms, both of which were similar to those in developed countries.

Meanwhile, the statistics showed, average per capita share of dairy in China was only 10.55 kilograms, a far cry from the world's average level.

China has abundant resources for stockbreeding. However, it lacks research and technical support for sustaining the industry.

"We are aimed at building a scientific and technological platform for boosting the industry in China," Guo said.

Zhang Yuan, a China Agricultural University professor who leads the research and development project, said their teams have already established two technical centers for cow embryos, which could produce at least 30,000 high-quality embryos every year.

Chinese scientists are also developing a new kind of milk, which contains anti-tumor conjugated linoleic acid, Zhang said.

Some cows in nationwide pilot farms, which have 1.38 million cattle, could produce 8,700 kilograms of milk in one year, which reached the average production of many developed countries, he said. The leading diary producers developed a total of 132 new diary products in the past three years.

"With technological advancement, dairy industry might become the pillar one of the national economy," Guo said.